nickyoungwrites.com - Bookshelfhttps://nickyoungwrites.com/?q=bookshelf
enThe end of complacency: Fukuyama on the grand accident of democracyhttps://nickyoungwrites.com/?q=bookshelf-one-cheer-democracy/end-complacency-fukuyama-grand-accident-democracy
<div class="field field--name-taxonomy-vocabulary-11 field--type-taxonomy-term-reference field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><a href="/?q=bookshelf" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Bookshelf</a></div><div class="field__item odd"><a href="/?q=one-cheer-democracy" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">One Cheer for Democracy</a></div></div></div><div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even" property="content:encoded"><p class="MsoNormal">In 1989, as communism was collapsing across Eastern Europe, Francis Fukuyama achieved intellectual celebrity—and notoriety—with a short essay, <a href="https://ps321.community.uaf.edu/files/2012/10/Fukuyama-End-of-history-article.pdf">The End of History?</a> “We may be witnessing,” he wrote, “the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.” A quarter of a century later, he has not quite recanted. His latest work, <a href="http://us.macmillan.com/politicalorderandpoliticaldecay/francisfukuyama">Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalisation of Democracy</a>, elaborates a notion of “political development” that still presents liberal democracy as a culmination of human progress. But getting there requires “three sets of institutions in perfect balance: a competent state, strong rule of law and democratic accountability” [25]. Developing these becomes “a universal requirement for all human societies over time” [37]. But develop them out of sequence or balance and you can end up end up with militarism (Prussia, Japan); clientelism (Greece, Italy), or authoritarianism (China). And even if you get everything about right, the institutions may atrophy and decay—as in today´s U.S.A—because of state capture by powerful interest groups and a surfeit of checks and balances that make government action extremely difficult.<br /></p>
<!--break--><p>Fukuyama’s model of political development in fact turns out to be so demanding, and so contingently rooted in European history, that only relatively few states, mainly clustered in northern Europe and its former colonies, have so far achieved it to a satisfactory degree. For the rest of the world, the message appears to remain that there is no alternative, even though the model is very hard to replicate. So it is far from clear what kind of claim is being made here about the “Globalisation of Democracy.” Has it arrived already or is it still on the way? Is it destiny, or merely desirable? And what does it mean to talk about the development of liberal democratic institutions as a “universal requirement of all human societies?”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><strong style="font-size: 16.26px;">It starts with the state</strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Fukuyama’s point of departure (borrowing from Weber) is not democracy but the emergence of “modern” states from their patrimonial ancestors: replacing “governments that were staffed with the friends and family of the ruler [and other elites]” with “a state bureaucracy that is impersonal and universal” [198], meritocratic and effective. Sometimes, an evolutionary leap was prompted by war or the threat of war and the need to develop a military machine. This was pre-eminently the case in China when the lethally efficient Qin empire emerged from the ‘warring states’ period 2,500 years ago, but also in Prussia, starting in the 17<sup>th</sup> century and in Japan in the 19<sup>th</sup> century. (It is odd to hear China’s state formation, so long ago, described as “modern,” but Fukuyama explicitly embraces this anachronism, even claiming that “China invented the modern state” [32].)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">China’s early success in creating an effective state was not balanced by any limit on the state’s power. Missing was the rule of law, understood as “a set of rules . . . binding on even the most powerful political actors” [24]. Fukuyama sees the rule of law as historically rooted in religious institutions—in India, Israel, the Islamic world, but especially in Europe—that were “essentially legal bodies responsible for interpreting a set of sacred texts and giving them moral sanction over the rest of society” [11]. In Europe the Catholic church “emerged as the guardian of a revived Roman law” [12]. England benefitted in addition from common law, established after the Norman conquest to boost the legitimacy of the early monarchs. These institutions helped keep monarchy in check and shaped the nature of government as it became more representative. By contrast, “Because of its lack of a transcendental religion China never developed a body of law that stood outside the positive enactments of the emperor and had no legal hierarchy independent of executive power” [337].</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Nor did Japan. Constitutional government and a highly efficient bureaucracy arrived during the Meiji restoration, but this was not so much a political settlement between local forces as the result of top down reform, in a quest to equal the West. As such, it failed to place adequate limits on the power of the emperor and elite, a part of which—the armed forces—seized control of the new bureaucratic machinery. Much the same was true of Prussia. It led a unifying Germany in the creation of a famously efficient state, with “regularity and transparency in the government’s behaviour” that facilitated growth and industrialisation, and that “over time evolved into a legal constraint on arbitrary despotism” [72]. But this was not rule of law so much as “liberal autocracy,” a model for today’s Singapore. And the machinery of state was <em>too</em> autonomous: “a high-quality bureaucracy that could make decisions with virtually no accountability to democratic politicians” [170]. This became a “state within a state” that was captured by an “absolutist coalition” of conservative and upper middle class forces [77].</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><strong>Premature democracy</strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Peaceful political reform [through] social groups interested in having an efficient, uncorrupt government” [201] was another pathway to state modernisation. Here, Fukuyama gives top marks to the U.K., where an elite coalition responded to the administrative demands of industrialisation and empire with public sector reforms that largely swept away patronage in favour of meritocracy, and established a professional civil service. Fukuyama stresses that these reforms, initiated by the 1854 Trevelyan-Northcote Report, took place long before, and certainly not as a result of, universal suffrage. In fact, he notes, “countries that democratised early, before they established modern administrations, found themselves developing clientelistic public sectors” [30]. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The U.S.A. “invented clientelism” [135]. Most of its states gave the vote to all white men in the 1820s, but this heralded a long era of mass patronage, in which people expected political parties to reward supporters with jobs and favours. American mistrust of ‘big government’ meanwhile inhibited the development of a professional administration. Public sector reform began with the 1883 Pendleton Act but “The end of the patronage system at a federal level did not arrive until the middle of the twentieth century” [160].</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In many other places, the patronage system has not ended yet. “Neither Greece nor Italy ever developed high-quality bureaucratic administrations; both remained mired in high degrees of clientelism and outright corruption” [38]. Fukuyama discusses these states in some detail as exemplifying “modernisation without development,” but stresses that their political ills are by no means unusual. Patrimonial elites still cling to power in Latin America, and in many developing countries the state is capable of suppressing dissent but weak and ineffective in delivering public goods. The ballot box is no panacea, as even fairly elected governments struggle with the same incapacities; indeed, “Many of the failures that are attributed to democracy are in fact failures of state administrations that are unable to deliver” [38]. “The central obstacle to development is lack of an effective state” [285].</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This is especially and chronically so in sub-Saharan Africa, where colonialism “on the cheap” [284] laid no foundation for state building. In India, “the British . . . established an army, a national bureaucracy, an educated middle class, and a lingua franca (English) that could unite the subcontinent’s diverse ethnicities, religions and castes. [323]. In East Asia, “Early state institutionalisation . . . made it easier to resist threats from the outside” [395] and enabled China, Vietnam and Korea to recover relatively fast from European and Japanese imperialist incursions in the 19<sup>th</sup> and 20<sup>th</sup> centuries. Whereas in Africa “the deadly legacy of European colonialism was . . . the profound absence of strong institutions” [392], and their absence is very often matched by the lack of shared, national identity. (“Nation building”—the welding of a common identity out of different regions, ethnicities and language groups—generally “runs parallel” to state building, according to Fukuyama.) Tanzania, he says, has done well in establishing a postcolonial, national identity, but is more the exception than the African rule: in Kenya, Nigeria and many other elsewheres, politics remains hostage to ethnic and ‘tribal’ divisions that were sharpened, or even invented, by colonial ‘indirect rule.’</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><strong>“Exclusive conditions”</strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">For all its impressive breadth, Fukuyama’s story suffers from critical reductions and omissions. For example, Chinese cosmology and traditions of Buddhism and Daoism are boiled down to “lack of transcendental religion.” It´s a bit more complicated than that. On omissions, it is surprising to hear so little of France, given the immense impacts of its revolution and the Napoleonic wars. The Arab world is visited only fleetingly. Soviet Russia and its erstwhile satellites barely get a mention either: Fukuyama may consider them a historical cul de sac but, given his emphasis on state competence and capacity, it seems odd to altogether overlook socialist efforts at state building.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It is even odder to insist that the outcomes of highly particular historical experience must be universalised. Fukuyama frequently presents England (and later the United Kingdom) as a paragon of political development: bringing the necessary institutions together in good sequence and correct balance, and still managing to withstand the decay that now besets the hapless former colony of America. (This tribute would certainly bemuse many a Briton, and infuriate a good number in Scotland and Northern Ireland). Yet Fukuyama is clear that British political order resulted from a long process, encompassing the establishment of religious authority and, later, common law; the ‘glorious revolution’ of 1688; the industrial revolution’s unleashing of new social forces, and administrative reforms following the Northcote-Trevelyan report. Discussing the political alliance that promoted the latter, he notes that “this kind of reform could not have been possible except under the exclusive conditions of British upper-class life” [129]. In short, Britain’s political development was essentially <em>sui generis</em>. Similarly, Fukuyama says of Costa Rica and Botswana, whose peaceful political development he hails (understandably enough) as well ahead of the trend on their respective continents, that in their cases “contemporary outcomes appear to be the product of a series of happy accidents” [274].</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It is hard to see how democracy and political development can become “globalised” if they are the chance result of historical processes and happy accidents. Western governments and aid agencies clearly share Fukuyama’s belief in the virtues of effective and accountable states operating within the rule of law, but he offers no tips on exporting political development, or ways forward for poor and poorly governed counties. Copy Botswana and Costa Rica? Well, that’s a lot easier said than done for countries being pulled this way and that by the social and political forces that happened to emerge from their own geography and history. If anything, Fukuyama’s analysis of the way in which effective states develop (or, more often, don’t) makes it seem even less likely that much difference can be made by, say, having IMF consultants lecture civil servants on public financial management, or paying NGOs to hand out T-shirts complaining about corruption.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><strong>Universal requirement?</strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So in what sense can these hard-to-make pillars of political order be a “universal requirement?” They do not appear to be <em>inevitable</em> consequences of the march of history. Fukuyama perhaps means, rather, that decent societies cannot be achieved <em>without</em> these pillars—that the pillars are always and everywhere necessary, if not sufficient, for anything that might be called the good society. Yet at no point does he define the good society. (It would, of course, be merely circular to define it is as one with effective, democratically accountable government that is subject to the rule of law).</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">If prosperity is an important constituent of the good society, the argument for liberal democracy as a universal requirement seems less persuasive today than it was a generation ago. During the Cold War, average income and living standards rose steadily in the West, creating a new ‘consumer society,’ while Russia and Eastern Europe lagged behind in personal consumption as well as political liberties. This made it easy for Fukuyama to declare (in The End of History?) the “unabashed victory of economic and political liberalism.” But today some politically illiberal regimes—pre-eminently China—are delivering much better material standards of living for most of their citizens than in the past. In the West, meanwhile, incomes for most percentiles have declined or stagnated since the 1970s, unemployment is generally higher (and has seen some particularly sharp spikes), job security is generally lower, public services and social protection are in many cases weaker, and inequality in the distribution of income and wealth has risen very substantially nearly everywhere. It seems that liberal democracy does not necessarily deliver collective prosperity. Worse, it seems that it doesn’t necessarily deliver fairness either.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Rising inequality is incontrovertibly correlated with decades of <em>neo</em>liberal policies—privatisation, de-regulation, lower taxes and a general withdrawal of the state, leaving collective outcomes largely in the hands of market forces. Neoliberalism has been especially dominant in the English speaking world but has had global impact and major influence on the nature of current globalisation. <a href="http://www.nickyoungwrites.com/?q=bookshelf/security-securitisation-and-art-persuasion">John Lanchester</a> has argued that Cold War ‘victory’ itself very probably emboldened neoliberal, market fundamentalism and unleashed new levels of ruthlessness and recklessness in the pursuit of profit: with socialism apparently down and out, capitalism could take the gloves off. But the most penetrating analysis of inequality has come from Thomas Piketty, who explores “the deep structures of capital and inequality” in a book published at the same time as Fukuyama’s, Capital in the Twenty First Century, and warns that “There is no natural, spontaneous process to prevent destabilising, inegalitarian forces from prevailing permanently” [24]</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><strong>r &gt; g = the rich get everything</strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Drawing on data as far back as the early 18<sup>th</sup> century, Piketty argues that the ongoing, steeply rising inequality in the U.S.A. and Europe (including the Scandinavian countries that are widely perceived as egalitarian) is a return to norms that prevailed before 1914. It was the two world wars of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, he claims, that disturbed these norms. The shocks of war dramatically reduced stocks of private capital (inherited wealth), while also prompting post-war governments to introduce progressive tax regimes and welfare programmes, at a time when reconstruction brought unparalleled rates of economic growth, especially in the three decades after World War II. A key indicator is the ratio of total private capital to gross national income. In France, this fell from 7:1 in 1910 to 3:1 in 1920 and 2:1 in 1950. It has since recuperated, to around 3:1 in 1990 and nearly 6:1 in 2010, and still rising. Measurements of wealth and income inequality over the same period follow very similar U curves.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Private capital, Piketty continues, now gets a return (r) on savings and investments that is well above rates of national economic growth (g). This was the case throughout the 19<sup>th</sup> century, when economies grew at no more than 0.5 or one cent per year, while capital earned a steady 5 per cent. Growth in the advanced economies is now flat-lining again at 19<sup>th</sup> century levels, while average returns on the re-accumulated stock of capital are at least 5 per cent. (The more you have, the more you make, as Piketty neatly illustrates with data from the endowment funds of American universities.) And if inherited wealth grows more than national income as a whole, the gap between those born rich and the rest can only widen. In short, “When the rate of return on capital exceeds the rate of growth of output and income as it did in the nineteenth century and seems likely to do again in the twenty-first, capitalism automatically generates arbitrary and unsustainable inequalities that radically undermine the meritocratic values on which democratic societies are based.” [1]</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">If the distributional injustice of pre-democratic societies may indeed resurge under the aegis of liberal democracy, the latter´s “unabashed victory” seems much less worth celebrating. True, Fukyama does not in fact claim that liberal democracy is a universal panacea, sufficient to cure all ills. Extreme inequality, moreover, does feature as one aspect of his notion of political decay. (Which is reminiscent of the way that some true believers on the left used to say that Russia and its satellites weren’t ‘really’ socialist: anything that sullies the vision is dismissed as not the real thing.) Nevertheless, the question of whether liberal democracy will ultimately prevail everywhere is beginning to sound like a red herring: an odd fish, produced by the Cold War, that now seems largely beside the point--whereas the older question, of what is a fair and decent society, remains with us.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">March 02, 2016, London</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><em>Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalisation of Democracy, Profile, 2014, 658 pp</em></p>
<p><em style="font-size: 13.008px; line-height: 1.538em;">Capital in the Twenty-First Century (translated by Arthur Goldhammer), Belknap, 2014, 685 pp</em></p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-addthis field--type-addthis field--label-above"><div class="field__label">AddThis:&nbsp;</div><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style " addthis:title="The end of complacency: Fukuyama on the grand accident of democracy - nickyoungwrites.com" addthis:url="https://nickyoungwrites.com/?q=bookshelf-one-cheer-democracy/end-complacency-fukuyama-grand-accident-democracy"><a href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_facebook"></a>
<a href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_twitter"></a>
</div>
</div></div></div>Wed, 02 Mar 2016 14:55:14 +0000Nick Young108 at https://nickyoungwrites.comYellow peril in Africa? White folks should stop fretting.https://nickyoungwrites.com/?q=bookshelf-china-one-cheer-democracy/yellow-peril-africa-white-folks-should-stop-fretting
<div class="field field--name-taxonomy-vocabulary-11 field--type-taxonomy-term-reference field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><a href="/?q=bookshelf" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Bookshelf</a></div><div class="field__item odd"><a href="/?q=china" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">On China</a></div><div class="field__item even"><a href="/?q=one-cheer-democracy" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">One Cheer for Democracy</a></div></div></div><div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even" property="content:encoded"><p class="MsoNormal">At the outbreak of Algeria’s war for independence in 1952, there were one million French settlers living in that country alone. Today, an estimated 250,000 people of Lebanese descent live in West Africa. Some two million people of Indian descent live in East and Southern Africa (not counting a million or so more on the islands of Mauritius and Réunion.) Numbers like these are worth bearing in mind when approaching Howard French’s book of anecdotal reportage, <em>China’s Second Continent: How a Million Migrants are Building a New Empire in Africa. </em>(Knopf, New York, 2014)</p>
<!--break-->
<p class="MsoNormal">About a quarter of the French Algerians stayed on after independence and, at the other end of the continent, some 200,000 Britons still reside in South Africa. (An estimated five million UK passport holders, nearly 10 percent of the total British population, and including me, live outside of the UK.) A rump of British and French settlers clung on in the other lost colonies, as did their counterparts from Portugal, Belgium, Italy and Germany. European corporations of course also remained, with expatriate staff to oversee their operations. These included, to mention only a few with UK links: British American Tobacco, growing the weed everywhere it could, and marketing interesting brands such as Malawi’s ‘Life’ cigarettes and East Africa’s ‘Sportsman;’ the rapacious Lonrho (London-Rhodesian mining), famously castigated by Edward Heath, a British tory prime minister, as representing “the unacceptable face of capitalism;” the Anglo-DutchUnilever, whose tea estates supplied its Brooke Bond and Lipton brands while the company also does a roaring trade in Blue Band margarine, soaps, detergents, Vaseline and a range of creams to make African skin whiter, and that other Anglo-Dutch concern, Shell, a flagrant violator of Niger delta communities and environment.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Africa’s relative economic buoyancy in the 21<sup>st</sup> century has attracted a lot of new business. <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/africa-in-focus/posts/2014/07/11-foreign-direct-investment-us-africa-leaders-summit">Foreign investment from the EU in sub-Saharan countries has grown fivefold since 2000 and remains four times larger than China’s.</a> European investment is greatest in Nigeria and South Africa, and in extractive industries, but also embraces transport, telecoms, financial services, utilities and agribusiness. European quality-of-life refugees and idyll-seekers have also made tracks in the tourist industry, setting up safari companies, backpacker bars and chic guest-houses. Their customers include a new wave of youngsters coming in their many thousands to spend a ‘gap’ year or two experiencing Africa as volunteer teachers, orphanage staff or NGO interns, and in many cases also enjoying the nightclubs, the booze, the ganja and the sex.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So it’s very likely that, all told, Europeans outnumber Chinese people temporarily resident in Africa. (I have not researched this in any detail; neither did French.) This is without counting North Americans: the diplomats staffing the United States’ huge embassies in virtually every capital, the aid bureaucrats and technocrats, the many missionaries—mostly morally conservative, fighting battles over sexuality and abortion that they’re losing at home—and the teachers in the American schools needed to support these enclaves. Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders can also be found in mining, oil, aid and tourist industries. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">After a hiatus following the demise of the Soviet Union, <a href="http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/publications/articles/russia-s-return-to-africa">Russia is now returning to Africa</a>. It is a major contributor to UN peacekeeping forces. It supplies arms and training to the militaries of Egypt, Angola, Nigeria, Sudan, South Africa, among others. It is actively pursuing nuclear reactor deals with Egypt and South Africa. Uganda has just contracted a subsidiary of Rostec, a Russian state arms manufacturer, to build an oil refinery on the shores of Lake Albert; Rostec had already sold Sukhoi fighter jets to Uganda, and the refinery deal may well be tied to new orders. It may also signal Russian determination to push harder in the ongoing scramble for Africa’s energy sector.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Israeli arms sales to Africa are small by comparison with Russia’s <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.619700">but rising</a>. Israeli, Africa-focused entrepreneurs include <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-12-05/gertler-earns-billions-as-mine-deals-leave-congo-poorest">the controversial billionaire, Dan Gertler</a>, who owns huge mining and oil concessions in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and appears to have its political class tucked in his deep pockets, enabling him <a href="http://www.globalwitness.org/library/secret-sales">to buy state assets for a song and sell them for a fortune</a>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Arab states are meanwhile <a href="http://www.arabianbusiness.com/saudi-arabia-keen-on-african-farm-investments-457485.html">looking to Africa for the farmland their oil-rich deserts lack</a>, bringing their sovereign wealth funds and investors together with African heads of state in regular <a href="http://pages.au.int/afroarab/news/third-africa-arab-summit-points-first-successful-steps-road-development-and-agrees-amb">Arab-Africa Investment Forums</a>, and handing out soft loans and grants as sweeteners for business deals.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.peacebuilding.no/var/ezflow_site/storage/original/application/04208a7feeefed486e3be192c27f0f40.pdf">Turkey, too</a> has convened various Turkey-Africa Cooperation Summits, established new embassies (and flag-carrier Turkish Airlines routes) across Africa, and increased development aid to the continent to more than USD 770 million in 2012. Two-way trade (Turkish iron and steel for African pearls and gemstones) has soared.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And then there are Asians. China’s much-discussed ‘voracious appetite for resources’ is shared by many of its neighbours. Japan is notoriously resource-poor—which didn’t stop it becoming an industrial powerhouse on the back of resources obtained elsewhere, including from China. (Indeed, the American scholar, Deborah Brautigam, argued in her 2009 book, <a href="http://www.nickyoungwrites.com/?q=bookshelf-china/it%E2%80%99s-all-down-africa"><em>The Dragon’s Gift</em></a>, that oil deals Japan struck with China in the 1970s provided a model for China’s later operations in Africa.) For decades, Japan has been a substantial, though largely unsung, aid donor to Africa. It is now <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/africa-in-focus/posts/2014/01/13-japan-in-africa-sy">ramping up aid and investment</a>—in part, it seems, to counter Chinese influence on the continent, but also because it needs a secure supply of natural gas (especially after the Fukushima nuclear disaster) and rare earth minerals (which China has in relative abundance but is unwilling to sell to Japan.)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Korea and Malaysia are also hot on the trail of African resources, including land. According to some reports, <a href="http://cogitasia.com/malaysia-asias-top-investor-in-africa/"> Malaysia’s foreign direct investment in Africa exceeded both China’s and India’s in 2011.</a> Petronas, the Malaysian state oil company, is an important upstream explorer in a dozen African countries and a major producer in troubled Sudan. Its subsidiary, Engen, is the continent’s biggest fuel retailer, with an oil refinery in Durban and 1,600 gas/petrol stations. Malaysian agribusinesses compete with Singaporean companies in the other oil business: palm oil. Having spent the past 50 years logging Indonesia to establish plantations, to the chagrin of orang-utans and biped conservationists, the Asian companies are now <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21612241-companies-wanting-make-palm-oil-face-angry-environmentalists-grow-cherish">moving into West Africa’s endangered forests.</a> In 2008, the Korean industrial conglomerate, Daewoo, obtained a 99 year lease over an area of Madagascar equal to roughly half of that country’s cropland—but the deal was aborted after it helped provoke political unrest and a coup d’état.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Daewoo’s engineering and construction division, meanwhile, is becoming a significant player in Africa’s construction market, where Korean companies have won <a href="http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20131117000283">contracts worth more than USD 70 billion</a>. Daewoo’s ongoing projects include a <a href="http://www.businesskorea.co.kr/article/1255/moroccan-power-plant-project-daewoo-engineering-construction-signs-two-trillion-won">USD 1.8 billion power plant in Morocco</a> and a <a href="http://www.businesskorea.co.kr/article/1255/moroccan-power-plant-project-daewoo-engineering-construction-signs-two-trillion-won">USD 160 million bridge linking Botswana and Zambia</a>, while their national competitor, Hyundai, is building <a href="http://www.businesskorea.co.kr/article/2341/bridge-construction-uganda-hyundai-ec-enters-uganda-market">a new, USD 125 million bridge over the Nile in Uganda</a>. (Both bridges are financed by Japanese development aid.) Daewoo’s and Hyundai’s vehicle divisions are at the same time beginning to claim market share in Southern and East Africa, although not yet emulating the success of LG, much less Samsung, in electronic and digital stuff.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">These Asian tigers come with significant soft power. Both countries offer numerous, fully funded bachelors and postgraduate university scholarships. Korea (like Japan) has substantial and growing grant aid and volunteer programmes. Korean Christian churches also send many missionaries to Africa. They have established their own school here in Kigali, Rwanda (where I live), and they also run an excellent patisserie, far better than anything the Belgians left behind.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I haven’t spotted any Vietnamese yet, but no doubt they’re booking their tickets.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">People of south Asian descent are more numerous and conspicuous. Traders have been crossing the Indian Ocean for at least 2,000 years, but it was British imperialism’s need for labour to build railways and to toil in mines and plantations that saw the transplanting of souls in a westerly direction, not much more than a century ago. Local, forced labour did not suffice, so Indians were shipped in to fill the gap. Many died, but some survivors managed to establish themselves as small traders and, by the mid-20<sup>th</sup> century, their families were prominent in commerce. (In British East Africa the colonial authorities banned them from farming). This mirrored developments in South East Asia, where indentured Chinese labourers on British rubber plantations evolved into a major, commercial force. The post-colonial position of these groups was precarious. Chinese communities in Malaysia and Indonesia endured sporadic, property-smashing riots, even pogroms. Idi Amin expelled many thousands of ‘Ugandan Asians’ in 1972. In Malaŵi, Mozambique and Kenya, Indians were subjected to various limitations on what they could own and where. Life under apartheid was not entirely comfortable for South Africa’s million or so people of Indian descent.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But even in Uganda some hung on. Their elite still owns many of the country’s biggest businesses, in hotel, banking, real estate and agro processing. The less affluent south Asian population is constantly refreshed by new immigrants from India and Pakistan arriving to set up or work in restaurants, grocery and computer shops. In small, upcountry towns you will now generally find at least one Indian and one Chinese ‘supermarket’ (though that seems too grand a term), and often the managers of both operations will be equally recent arrivals. Newcomers from south Asia include not only petty traders but also service industries penetrating markets where the diaspora has less historic presence—such as Kigali, where Dr. Argwal’s Eye Hospital opened just last year. My barber in Kigali is Pakistani. I don’t know how long he’s been here because he doesn’t speak enough English to tell me, and my Urdu is even more limited.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Investment from India is growing steadily and, if not quite matching China’s, is of the same order of magnitude. Notable players include ONGC, the state-owned oil and gas company, which has assets in the Gulf of Guinea, Angola and Mozambique; Bharti Airtel, which operates phone networks in 17 African countries; the TATA conglomerate, which mines iron ore in Ivory Coast and South Africa, coal in Mozambique and soda ash in Kenya, as well as manufacturing ferrochrome in South Africa, where the group is also involved in power generation and luxury hotels; Essar, which has gas exploration and electric power supply licences, mines coal in Mozambique and until recently operated a dilapidated oil refinery in Mombasa. Atlas Mara, led by an energetic young man whose family was expelled from Uganda, is <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/c91ac096-ad2c-11e4-a5c1-00144feab7de.html">making sizeable waves</a> in financial services and property development. In Ethiopia, Indian companies have, controversially, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/feb/07/india-investors-forcing-ethiopians-off-land">leased at least 600,000 hectares of farmland</a>, the largest deal of its kind in the country.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So: the big picture is of a continent that is more open for business than in past decades, with more players piling in from all points of the compass. (Brazil didn’t get the mention it deserved in my whirlwind tour). With growth elsewhere flat-lining or slowing, Africa seems on the way to becoming many investors’ ‘second continent,’ one of the few places capable of delivering fat returns. China has been an important player in this process, very likely helping to ‘crowd in’ foreign investment. There are almost certainly risks for Africa here, as well as opportunities: notably, the risk that political elites will gobble up available resource rents leaving their semi-literate masses with little or nothing. But China did not invent that development model, and the processes unfolding across the continent are much more complex and multi-polar than a Chinese conquest of Africa.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><strong>Huge theory, scant evidence </strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">French’s book is more nuanced than its title suggests, but it lacks historical depth, overlooks the wider context I’ve just sketched, and offers no evidence for the dramatic claim that its title advances.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">French believes that he is:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">witnessing . . . the higgledy piggledy cobbling together of a new Chinese realm of interest. Here were the beginnings of a new empire, a haphazard empire, perhaps, but an empire nonetheless. [170]</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Higgledy piggledy and haphazard are almost certainly right. The Communist Party after Mao has been more responsive to its subjects’ views than Western democracy and human rights lobbies could see, but its ‘reform and opening’ process—which I spent 12 years witnessing myself in China—was tentative, experimental and often fumbling, as acknowledged in its leadership’s frequent refrain of “feeling for the stones to cross the stream.” Much she same is doubtless true of the ‘going global’ policy.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But the empire claim is specious. In an epilogue, French sketches a hasty but explicit analogy between China’s current interest in Africa and Japan’s invasion and settlement of Manchuria (northeast China) in the 1930’s. This is silly. There was nothing remotely “haphazard” about Japanese imperialism and there is no echo of its sheer violence in China’s current development bank diplomacy and trade. French, however, argues that Tokyo planned (but never managed) to settle five million people in Manchuria. And he observes that:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">No one knows how many Chinese have set themselves up on African soil in recent years, but if anything, the widely used figure of one million, which I myself have adopted here, seems quite conservative. [267]</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The essential structure of his argument thus seems to be: i) Imperialist Japan planned to send a lot of people to Manchuria; ii) there are a lot of Chinese in Africa now; iii) therefore, China is building a new empire in Africa. It would need some compelling evidence tightly packed between these wonky pillars for the case to have any chance of standing upright. But in fact there is little else in the book to support its main claim, or to justify the lazy elision, in consecutive sentences, of a “realm of interest” and “a new empire.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">What we get, instead, is a series of road trips punctuated by interviews with a few dozen Chinese government and corporate officials, traders, entrepreneurs, and farmers. These are readable and credible accounts of significant human interest, and anecdotal reportage of this kind can offer useful insights into migration patterns, strategies and outcomes. Push factors in the cast’s departure from China were that they found their homeland too crowded, competitive, polluted and corrupt. Pull factors were rumours of Africa as a land of opportunity where they could own cars and get rich. Some came entirely under their own steam, competed on the streets with petty African traders hawking socks, and worked upwards into electrical goods and beyond. Some started out as translators or other staff with large Chinese corporations, and found ways to remain. One was contracted by an established ‘beauty salon’ as, we are invited to infer, a sex worker.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">French’s vignettes do not, however, support his “new empire” thesis. Many of the interviewees liked the “freedom” they enjoyed in Africa, but not many planned to remain permanently. Making money and getting home seemed to be the median aspiration. (Shuai Yuhua, the most sympathetic and thoughtful of the interviewees, hopes to retire to France, where he was already living before an old school chum invited him to Mali to help out as interpreter and informal ambassador for the China Geo-Engineering Corporation.) Only three of the interviewees had bought land and were farming—one in Zambia, one in Namibia, one, rather unpromisingly, in Mozambique. Now that pioneer individuals have established themselves, others are very likely to follow, but it is clear from French’s account that this is an informal process, not one driven by Chinese government policy or material support. (This is in marked contrast to migration within China, where for two decades government cadres at all levels arranged to bus peasant girls into factory-dormitories, to make stuff for the likes of Nike and Apple.)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Informal Chinese immigration may well become a sensitive issue but this doesn’t make it imperialism. Human beings have migrated around the world since the emergence of the species and our current economic orthodoxy holds that ‘factor mobility’ helps to create wealth. That doesn’t stop fortress Europe letting African migrants drown in the Mediterranean moat rather than ‘encouraging’ them, and it doesn’t stop some South Africans butchering migrant workers from neighbouring countries. Indeed, xenophobia is rife in many places, in reaction, perhaps, to the accelerated pace of recent globalisation, but also to the shortage of local opportunities—especially in Africa. But most African governments have so far judged that Chinese investors help to create local opportunities. (That judgment seems to be shared by the government of Canada, where the city of Richmond, a satellite of Vancouver, is now the world’s <a href="http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1213977/how-mainland-chinese-immigrants-are-transforming-vancouver">first city outside of China with an ethnically Chinese majority population</a>. Does this make British Columbia part of China’s ‘empire’?) And the stories of African construction sites manned by thousands of unskilled or low-skilled Chinese workers, if ever true, are no longer so. I have not researched this systematically (neither has French), but in my seven years in East Africa I have seen dozens of Chinese construction sites and the proportion of Chinese workers on them has been steadily declining; those remaining are clearly and invariably in supervisory positions. My guess is that governments have demanded more and more ‘local content’ of Chinese companies, just as they have increasingly demanded it from their own: a work permit for a non-East African expatriate in Kenya, whether working in a bank or an NGO, now costs USD 4,000. It’s doubtful that Chinese construction companies pay that much, given that their contracts are wrapped in relatively cheap finance packages, but the African policy pressure for local content is tangible and evidently producing results. African governments are not passive, helpless imperial subjects. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">French weaves into his encounters some other big questions about China in Africa, usually rhetorically, inviting us to make the final jump to conclusions the text has primed us for. Can the Chinese state, with its ostensibly apolitical ‘win-win’ business rhetoric, avoid the messiness of African politics? Obviously not. Do Chinese entrepreneurs offer bribes? Probably. (French devotes several pages to an apparently shady real estate deal in Senegal but in the end it remain just that: apparently shady. Much is insinuated, nothing firmly established.) Do Chinese companies build crap quality infrastructure? Often, yes. Are Chinese traders suffocating local manufacture by flooding markets with cheap, poor quality goods? Yes, probably. The questions are legitimate but hardly new; the answers we’re primed for are only partly right, because incomplete.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There’s nothing uniquely Chinese about bribery. Chinese infrastructure may not be top quality but is not necessarily bad value for money: it comes very cheap, and no-one else is doing as much to plug the yawning infrastructure gaps that economists of all stripes routinely deplore as a major ‘development challenge’ for Africa. Cheap imports can indeed harm local industry, but the text book case here is the damage done to African farmers by the dumping of subsidised European and American produce. Local textile industries are undoubtedly suffocated by imports from China (and elsewhere: ‘traditional’ African prints now come largely from Thailand and Indonesia), but also by the second-hand clothes and footwear trade—the Western cast-offs, often collected under falsely charitable pretences, in which hundreds of millions of Africans dress.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><strong>Jobs and resources</strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Moreover—precisely as Deborah Brautigam predicted in 2009—Chinese companies are now beginning to relocate factories and jobs in leather tanning and footwear to, notably, Ethiopia. The <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-07-22/ethiopia-becomes-china-s-china-in-search-for-cheap-labor">Huajian shoe factory</a> opened outside Addis Ababa in 2012 and employs 3,200 Ethiopians. The parent company is planning to invest USD 300 million over the next decade in a new light industry complex which, it says, <a href="http://addisababaonline.com/chinese-shoe-factory-huajian-now-employs-3200-people/">will create 50,000 jobs</a>. Lin Yifu, former Chief Economist at the World Bank, has said that China will have to <a href="http://blogs.worldbank.org/developmenttalk/how-to-seize-the-85-million-jobs-bonanza">shed 85 million manufacturing jobs</a> in the coming years as wages for unskilled Chinese workers rise, and that Africa is the likeliest destination. Long shifts in low paid factory work may not be appealing to the predominantly Western consumers of the shoes Huajian makes, but this does seem to be a foot on the ladder of the industrialisation that many Africans have long dreamed of, but which a century of European imperialism did little to advance.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In other respects too, China’s impact deserves a more balanced assessment. In 2004, when China’s Exim bank made large loans to the government of Angola, to be spent on Chinese firms building infrastructure (without the money passing through the Angolan government) and to be repaid in future oil shipments, the Western world at large cried foul. The deals lacked transparency and competitive tendering, undermining global efforts to improve natural resource governance, critics charged. Many stand by that critique but, interestingly, others have moved on. Brautigam was, again, among the first to argue that infrastructure-for-resources deals at least ensure that African resource-supplying countries end up with some physical assets (rather than seeing all the money eaten by their elites). This view has gained some traction. Last year, the World Bank commissioned and published <a href="http://elibrary.worldbank.org/doi/book/10.1596/978-1-4648-0239-3">a discussion paper on Resource Financed Infrastructure</a> which suggested that some version of such deals should be developed and adopted more widely. Several invited commentators agreed. Paul Collier, one of the UK’s foremost development economists, noted that:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">The opaque nature of infrastructure-for-resources deals is indeed worrisome. But the key reason for this is that there is a monopoly situation in the supply of such deals. If there were several package deal providers—for example, if bilateral donors teamed up with their national resource companies and construction companies—then the value of RfI deals could be determined through competition even if internally they remained opaque. [p. 71]</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In other words, if you can’t beat them, join them. Ten years ago, international donors like the UK definitely thought they had a duty to educate China in how to ‘do’ international development. It is intriguing to see the fields of influence now starting to pull the other way, with Chinese practice impacting on the ‘traditional’ donors, including a revival of interest in infrastructure. (See, for example, the UK’s <a href="https://www.gov.uk/international-development-funding/emerging-africa-infrastructure-fund">Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund</a>; it is also noteworthy that the UK, France, Germany and Italy have decided to join the new, Beijing-led Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, despite the firm opposition of the United States.)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Yet it is certainly true that many Western diplomats, aid and business people feel uncomfortable with, even threatened by, China’s growing presence and influence on the continent. These are the feelings French speaks to and echoes. Yet this kind of paternalistic and post-imperial anxiety contradicts the virtues those same people typically advocate: economically, global markets, free trade and competition which is not a zero-sum game but has room and at least some wealth for everyone; socially and culturally, that newly applauded thing: diversity.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">White folks should stop fretting. In almost any foreseeable future, Africa will remain an important, probably increasingly important, “realm of interest” for Europe and the Americas, and the West will remain important to Africa. And it’s not up to Westerners to teach Africans how to deal with China. The natives will have to work it out for themselves. In this respect, I applaud French for finding room to pass on these words of luminous clarity from Albert Osei, “a Ghanaian national who had been country directory for the World Bank in in Guinea and in Burkina Faso:”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">The fear that China is going to come here and rape us of our resources is nonsense . . . The Chinese need our resources and the key question is what price we get for them and how much transformation is done locally. All the rest is meaningless . . .</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">With fifty-four countries in Africa, there’s not much leverage that any single one of us can have. But if we work to cut deals together we can get much better terms. We can also enlist China to help us build and infrastructure that lets us trade much more with each other . . .</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">China’s involvement should help us to change the terms of engagement with the West, in order to gain greater equity, more parity. If the West is jealous of China, we should say to them, ‘Train our people and give them a bigger role in your companies. Don’t complain about the Chinese. Help us move up the value chain. Do this and we will love you.’ [p. 207]</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Kigali, April 2015</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-addthis field--type-addthis field--label-above"><div class="field__label">AddThis:&nbsp;</div><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style " addthis:title="Yellow peril in Africa? White folks should stop fretting. - nickyoungwrites.com" addthis:url="https://nickyoungwrites.com/?q=bookshelf-china-one-cheer-democracy/yellow-peril-africa-white-folks-should-stop-fretting"><a href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_facebook"></a>
<a href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_twitter"></a>
</div>
</div></div></div>Thu, 14 May 2015 09:08:10 +0000Nick Young106 at https://nickyoungwrites.comFrance’s post-imperial stress disorderhttps://nickyoungwrites.com/?q=bookshelf-one-cheer-democracy-zettel/france%E2%80%99s-post-imperial-stress-disorder
<div class="field field--name-taxonomy-vocabulary-11 field--type-taxonomy-term-reference field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><a href="/?q=bookshelf" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Bookshelf</a></div><div class="field__item odd"><a href="/?q=one-cheer-democracy" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">One Cheer for Democracy</a></div><div class="field__item even"><a href="/?q=zettel" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Zettel</a></div></div></div><div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even" property="content:encoded"><p><!--[if gte mso 9]><p><xml><br />
<o:OfficeDocumentSettings><br />
<o:RelyOnVML></o:RelyOnVML><br />
<o:AllowPNG></o:AllowPNG><br />
</o:OfficeDocumentSettings><br />
</xml><![endif]--></p>
<p><!--[if gte mso 9]><p><xml><br />
<w:WordDocument><br />
<w:View>Normal</w:View><br />
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom><br />
<w:TrackMoves></w:TrackMoves><br />
<w:TrackFormatting></w:TrackFormatting><br />
<w:DoNotShowRevisions></w:DoNotShowRevisions><br />
<w:DoNotPrintRevisions></w:DoNotPrintRevisions><br />
<w:DoNotShowMarkup></w:DoNotShowMarkup><br />
<w:DoNotShowComments></w:DoNotShowComments><br />
<w:DoNotShowInsertionsAndDeletions></w:DoNotShowInsertionsAndDeletions><br />
<w:DoNotShowPropertyChanges></w:DoNotShowPropertyChanges><br />
<w:PunctuationKerning></w:PunctuationKerning><br />
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas></w:ValidateAgainstSchemas><br />
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid><br />
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent><br />
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText><br />
<w:DoNotPromoteQF></w:DoNotPromoteQF><br />
<w:LidThemeOther>EN-GB</w:LidThemeOther><br />
<w:LidThemeAsian>ZH-CN</w:LidThemeAsian><br />
<w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript><br />
<w:Compatibility><br />
<w:BreakWrappedTables></w:BreakWrappedTables><br />
<w:SnapToGridInCell></w:SnapToGridInCell><br />
<w:WrapTextWithPunct></w:WrapTextWithPunct><br />
<w:UseAsianBreakRules></w:UseAsianBreakRules><br />
<w:DontGrowAutofit></w:DontGrowAutofit><br />
<w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark></w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark><br />
<w:EnableOpenTypeKerning></w:EnableOpenTypeKerning><br />
<w:DontFlipMirrorIndents></w:DontFlipMirrorIndents><br />
<w:OverrideTableStyleHps></w:OverrideTableStyleHps><br />
<w:UseFELayout></w:UseFELayout><br />
</w:Compatibility><br />
<m:mathPr><br />
<m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"></m:mathFont><br />
<m:brkBin m:val="before"></m:brkBin><br />
<m:brkBinSub m:val="&#45;-"></m:brkBinSub><br />
<m:smallFrac m:val="off"></m:smallFrac><br />
<m:dispDef></m:dispDef><br />
<m:lMargin m:val="0"></m:lMargin><br />
<m:rMargin m:val="0"></m:rMargin><br />
<m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"></m:defJc><br />
<m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"></m:wrapIndent><br />
<m:intLim m:val="subSup"></m:intLim><br />
<m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"></m:naryLim><br />
</m:mathPr></w:WordDocument><br />
</xml><![endif]--></p>
<!--[if gte mso 9]><p><xml><br />
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="false"<br />
DefSemiHidden="false" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99"<br />
LatentStyleCount="371"><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" QFormat="true" Name="Normal"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="index 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="index 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="index 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="index 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="index 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="index 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="index 7"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="index 8"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="index 9"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 7"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 8"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 9"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Normal Indent"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="footnote text"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="annotation text"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="header"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="footer"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="index heading"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="caption"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="table of figures"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="envelope address"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="envelope return"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="footnote reference"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="annotation reference"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="line number"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="page number"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="endnote reference"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="endnote text"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="table of authorities"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="macro"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="toa heading"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List Bullet"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List Number"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List Bullet 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List Bullet 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List Bullet 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List Bullet 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List Number 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List Number 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List Number 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List Number 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" QFormat="true" Name="Title"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Closing"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Signature"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Default Paragraph Font"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Body Text"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Body Text Indent"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List Continue"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List Continue 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List Continue 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List Continue 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List Continue 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Message Header"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Salutation"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Date"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Body Text First Indent"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Body Text First Indent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Note Heading"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Body Text 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Body Text 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Body Text Indent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Body Text Indent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Block Text"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Hyperlink"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="FollowedHyperlink"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Document Map"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Plain Text"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="E-mail Signature"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="HTML Top of Form"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="HTML Bottom of Form"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Normal (Web)"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="HTML Acronym"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="HTML Address"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="HTML Cite"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="HTML Code"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="HTML Definition"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="HTML Keyboard"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="HTML Preformatted"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="HTML Sample"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="HTML Typewriter"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="HTML Variable"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Normal Table"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="annotation subject"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="No List"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Outline List 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Outline List 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Outline List 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Simple 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Simple 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Simple 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Classic 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Classic 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Classic 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Classic 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Colorful 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Colorful 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Colorful 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Columns 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Columns 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Columns 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Columns 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Columns 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Grid 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Grid 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Grid 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Grid 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Grid 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Grid 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Grid 7"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Grid 8"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table List 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table List 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table List 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table List 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table List 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table List 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table List 7"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table List 8"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table 3D effects 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table 3D effects 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table 3D effects 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Contemporary"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Elegant"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Professional"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Subtle 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Subtle 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Web 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Web 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Web 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Balloon Text"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Theme"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"<br />
Name="List Paragraph"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"<br />
Name="Intense Quote"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"<br />
Name="Subtle Emphasis"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"<br />
Name="Intense Emphasis"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"<br />
Name="Subtle Reference"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"<br />
Name="Intense Reference"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"<br />
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"<br />
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"<br />
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"<br />
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"<br />
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"<br />
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"<br />
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"<br />
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"<br />
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"<br />
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"<br />
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"<br />
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"<br />
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"<br />
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"<br />
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"<br />
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"<br />
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"<br />
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"<br />
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"<br />
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"<br />
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"<br />
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"<br />
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"<br />
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"<br />
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"<br />
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"<br />
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"<br />
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"<br />
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"<br />
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"<br />
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"<br />
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"<br />
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"<br />
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"<br />
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"<br />
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
</w:LatentStyles><br />
</xml><![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 10]><style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:0cm;
mso-para-margin-right:0cm;
mso-para-margin-bottom:8.0pt;
mso-para-margin-left:0cm;
line-height:107%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}
</style><p><![endif]-->
<p class="MsoNormal"><em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A prizewinning novel explores France’s identity crisis with lyrical panache—and a painful look back at the not-so-glorious past. But hang on a minute. A weird undertow appears to suggest that the answer to present troubles lies in more, er, sexual congress.</em> <em>Vraiment? </em><em>I thought it was more a matter of politics.</em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-left: 36.0pt;">Alexis Jenni</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-left: 36.0pt;">L’Art Français de la Guerre (The French Art of War)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-left: 36.0pt;">(Gallimard, Paris, 2013 folio edition, 776 pp)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-left: 36.0pt;"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">France had a terrible 20<sup>th</sup> century. One million six hundred thousand dead in a First World War that historians remain at a loss to explain. A squalid struggle with Britain for control of the Middle East, with a continuing legacy of seemingly endless violence. Defeat and occupation in a Second World War that brought the additional ignominy of a puppet government collaborating with Nazism. Then a barbaric, failed effort to hold on to colonies in Indochina and Algeria. Finally, as the century drew to a close, propping up a crumbling dictatorship in Rwanda and intervening to protect its <em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">génocidaires</em>. This was a long and hard fall for a nation whose 18<sup>th</sup> and 19<sup>th</sup> centuries saw prodigious scientific, intellectual and cultural achievement, prodigious imperial power, and prodigious belief in the virtues of French civilisation.</p>
<!--break-->
<p class="MsoNormal">The French Art of War explores France’s existential anguish through two, interwoven stories. The first is that of Victorien Salagnon, a schoolboy in Vichy France who, towards the end of World War II, trains with the resistance and joins the allied liberation forces. He then enlists in the regular army and serves in Indochina and Algeria. No holds are barred in describing what would today be called the ‘gross human rights violations’ of those campaigns. Indochina was horribly inept: struggling with cast-off American equipment against an invisible enemy who the French generals repeatedly underestimated. Algeria was, by comparison, brutally efficient—combining overwhelming force with systematic torture; but this alienated the entire population, not just the nationalist minority, to the extent that continued rule became impossible. (And not just in Algeria; news of the débacle, fanned by the excoriating prose of Franz Fanon, the Martinique citizen-subject, spread across the French empire, speeding its collapse.)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">All of this is a matter of historical record but, beyond France and her former colonies, it is not engraved deeply in the consciousness of recent generations. This doubtless owes something to American cultural power. We’ve all seen the Vietnam (and, now, Iraq) war movies. America effortlessly eclipses other stories with its own preoccupations and soul-searching. Yet the mainstream French film industry has avoided such soul-searching, at least when it comes to international, box-office hits, preferring soft focus on the chic and stylish: Amélie; Chocolat; Amour. This is the charming France that Anglophones love to love.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Disinterring the past</strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">At home, too, France has had trouble coming to terms with the past. Jenni’s narrator, whose name we never learn, is a vaguely anti-establishment guy, a generation younger than Salagnon,who drops out of a corporate job and a steady relationship in search of he knows not quite what. As a child, he and his friends disinterred a pile of bones around the new apartment complex where they lived. It transpired that the complex was built upon a cemetery. When the adults found out, the bones were unceremoniously re-buried and the subject was closed. The past was not up for discussion, not permitted to haunt.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The anonymous narrator (who I shall call aleXis) reflexively scorns the military and police, and loathes Gaullist cant, but has drifted into a professional, bourgeois lifestyle. His dissident self is stirred into inchoate rebellion when he sees on TV that French soldiers are being deployed to Kuwait in Opération Daguet—France’s contribution to the 1991 ‘Desert Storm’ Gulf War. He wrecks a posh dinner party (and his relationship with his girlfriend) by serving up semi-cooked offal to his guests, and embarks on a new life as a low-paid delivery man renting a bedsit garret. It is now that he meets Salagnon, who fascinates him because, it turns out, the retired captain is a gifted artist. aleXis has always wanted to paint, so he starts taking lessons with Salagnon and hearing his story. Re-living (and re-counting to us) the veteran’s past becomes a process of growing admiration and empathy—with the man, not the lost causes. aleXis continues to attend anti-war marches that anti-riot police break up with routine violence.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Banlieues and burquas</strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Salagnon lives out in Voracieux-les-Bredins (“Mention the name to a [white] Lyonnais and he will shudder” [p. 284]), one of Lyon’s shabby, densely-immigrated <em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">banlieues</em> beyond the end of the metro line. Waiting for the bus one day when his throat is still scorching and his head still fuddled from tear gas, aleXis studies the unfamiliar greeting etiquette of people on the street—men touching each other’s shoulders, etc—and wonders “How can we live together if the gestures that allow contact are not the same?” [287] A common <em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">langue</em>—and love of the French language flows throughout the book, with interesting digressions on capital letters and the passive voice, but also, in the early stages, dismay at the strange accents and intonations of immigrants—is seemingly not enough to ensure community of <em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">langage</em>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The sight of two veiled women brings a sharper response. They are “privatising” and “enclosing” public space [288]. The veil’s effort to protect women from casual “concupiscence”—and this is an intriguing argument—reduces the human relationship to a purely rational, impersonal plane, and “nothing is more erratic than reason.” Indeed, “the reign of reason alone turns me into a monster.” (An evident riposte to Goya’s <a href="http://www.nickyoungwrites.com/?q=bookshelf-elsewhere/dream-reason-produces-monsters">The sleep of reason produces monsters</a> and, possibly, an allusion to Tolstoy’s startling claim, in the epilogue to War and Peace, that “Once admit that human life can guided by reason, and all possibility of life is annihilated.” [Constance Garnett English translation, Heinemann, 1971. p. 1221])</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Voracieux-les-Bredins is also home to one of Salagnon’s former comrades in arms, Mariani. He is a cheerfully racist oaf who has assembled a group of young, armed thugs to command, and has fortified his tower block apartment windows with sandbags, in the belief that:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">“We have been colonised. You have to use the word. You have to have the courage to use the word because it fits. No-one dares use it, but it describes our situation exactly: we are in a colonial situation, and we are the colonised. It has to come to force to fight back.” [298]</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Mariani and his ‘lads’ are, in many scenes, clownish figures, but they are making political progress, having recently had a meeting with the newly elected mayor who, Mariani says, “knows and understands our ideas.” [583] The comic element—Mariani’s ridiculous clothes, his expostulations against a black Irish athlete on the TV—seems to be a way of softening, humanising rather than demonising, him.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Salagnon is no sympathiser with Mariani’s views, tolerating him only because Mariani saved his life in Indochina, carrying the injured comrade for hours through the jungle. (Hmm. That’s just a little trite.) For Salagnon:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">“Race is just wind. A sheet hung across a room for a shadow play. The lights go out, we sit down, and now there’s just a lantern projecting shadows. The spectacle begins. We get excited, clap, laugh, boo the bad guys and cheer the good ones, but we’re only seeing shadows . . . [394]</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">“Race is not a fact of nature, it only exists if you talk about it . . . [394]</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">“We infer wind from its effects, so racism leads us to suppose that race exists. They [<em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mariani et al</em>] have won, everyone thinks like them, no matter whether for or against: people believe again in the division of humanity. [394-5]</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Jenni works hard to make Salagnon an almost mystical figure: first lured to arms by outrage at humiliation; progressively disillusioned, yet trapped in a life of professional violence by comradeship and a sense that this has become his inescapable fate—what else could he do?; finally transcending the common stupidity of humankind through the art of painting, which “saved his life and soul.” [700] That his painting was more a spiritual than merely aesthetic journey is underlined by the fact that he has not bothered to modify in any way the tacky furnishings and cheap prints in the apartment where he and his <em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">pied noir</em> (European Algerian) wife, Eurydice, are living out their childless old age. They accept, yet transcend, their surroundings.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Painters and poets</strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">However, the narrative centrality of visual art lacks the support of strong visualisation. (<em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">See endnote</em>) There is not enough of the artist’s eye in Jenni’s prose to convince us of the bond between Salagnon and aleXis, and the supposed transcendent power of art. We have to take this transcendence on trust, as a nice idea but one that Jenni has not really established. This risks the idea becoming a mere cliché (as it does when Salagnon finds an old Chinese master in Hanoi to teach him the oriental mysteries of brushwork.)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">If lack of visualisation is Jenni’s critical weakness, his strength is the play of ideas in fluid monologue: engagingly digressive, forested with metaphor, sonorously repetitive, returning to the riffs of blood, appearance, violence and defeat. His is more a musical than a visual gift. And the melodies do not put too much strain on a British grammar school grasp of French. For example:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">Nous aimons tellement la force, tellement, depuis que nous l’avons perdue. Un peu plus de force nous sauvera, croyons-nous toujours, toujours un peu plus de force que celle dont nous disposons. Et nous échouerons encore. (584; We love strength so much, so much, ever since we lost it. A bit more force will save us, we always believe, always a bit more force than we have just now. And still we fail.)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This is clearly not just a French disease, as Jenni tacitly admits through a significant, ancillary character. Salagnon’s uncle, who first led the young man into the Resistance and thence a life of professional soldiering, followed the same career at a more senior level (and was eventually condemned to death for his role in the failed coup to oust De Gaulle). The uncle’s constant companion in the colonial wars, we learn, was a battered copy of Homer’s Odyssey, which he was rote learning. “Homer is talking about us, much better than the newsreels,” the uncle says. “They make me laugh, those pompous little films they show in the cinemas; the ancient Greek’s story is much closer to the Indochina I’ve been in for months.” [361] Years later, as he awaits execution he has finally got the whole epic off by heart.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Jenni must, surely, be aware of his compatriot Simone Weil’s superlative essay, Iliad, Poem of Might, written during World War II. Might (violence, force), Weil argues, is the real hero of the epic, turning all men, whether victors or vanquished—both temporary conditions—into things: either corpses or ‘stones,’ equally devoid of souls.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">The human race [<em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Weil wrote</em>] is not divided, in the Iliad, between the vanquished, the slaves, the suppliants on the one hand, and conquerors and masters on the other. No single man is to be found in it who is not, at some time, forced to bow beneath might . . . [160-161]</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">The strong man is never absolutely strong nor the weak man absolutely weak, but each one is ignorant of this. They do not believe they are of the same species. . . He who possesses strength moves in an atmosphere which offers him no resistance. Nothing in the human element surrounding him is of a nature to induce, between the intention and the act, that brief interval where thought may lodge. Where there is no room for thought, there is no room either for justice or prudence. This is the reason why men of arms behave with such harshness and folly. Their weapon sinks into an enemy disarmed at their knees; they triumph over a dying man, describing to him the outrages that his body will suffer; Achilles beheads twelve Trojan adolescents on Patroclus’ funeral pyre as naturally as we cut flowers for a tomb. They never guess as they exercise their power that the consequences of their acts will turn back on themselves. [163]</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">Such is the nature of might. Its power to transform man into a thing is double and it cuts both ways; it petrifies differently but equally the souls of those who suffer it and those who wield it. [173]</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">The art of war is nothing but the art of provoking such transformations. [174]</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">(Panichas, [ed], The Simone Weil Reader, McKay, New York, 1977)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This is very close to the pathology of warfare that Jenni describes, wherein men feel themselves to be driven by ‘destiny’ or ‘necessity’ (as Weil puts it), such that barbarism becomes routine, and “the soul [is] screwed up with terrible creases, impossible to iron out” [Jenni, 768.] There is nothing French about this. Describing it as a ‘French’ art, I can only guess, was a deliberate effort to provoke national self-examination, and it succeeded to the extent that the book won the prestigious Goncourt prize for 2011—although that, it seems, has done nothing to arrest the steady advance of the National Front. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The silent Other</strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">If Jenni’s diagnosis of France’s malaise seems convincing, his implied resolution of the disorder is somewhat less so.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">He offers us sympathy for the lost souls of war, and the need to re-examine and re-evaluate the past (implicitly, perhaps, without quarantining any constituency in a gesture of political correctness.) Fine, I’ll sign up to that.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">He offers us the transcendence of art. Okay, I’ll swallow that, too—but more as a matter of faith than persuasion, since the case here is not well crafted.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Finally, he offers us the mixing of blood in “the urban cauldron [where] the precious soup simmers and changes, always diverse, always rich.” [743] By this stage, aleXis has a new girlfriend. It gradually emerges that her family originates from an “elsewhere” that is never specified: Algeria, probably, though it could also be Lebanon or Syria. Either way, as he rides with her on the bus through the <em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">banlieues</em>, his previous feelings of alienation and un-belonging have softened significantly, melting into the general pot. The novel ends, one evening after aleXis has been on a fishing trip with Salagnon and Mariani, and to the background sound of a street disturbance that Mariani has since stirred up, with aleXis ejaculating inside this nameless and voiceless lover. (“I swelled up completely, my member too, I was full and I was coming inside you. And at last I was well.” [774]). Fin. Curtains.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This is a less than satisfactory climax. It recalls the old (Anglo-American) Blue Mink pop song, <a href="http://www.songlyrics.com/blue-mink/melting-pot-lyrics/">Melting Pot</a>:</p>
<p><!--[if gte mso 9]><p><xml><br />
<o:OfficeDocumentSettings><br />
<o:RelyOnVML></o:RelyOnVML><br />
<o:AllowPNG></o:AllowPNG><br />
</o:OfficeDocumentSettings><br />
</xml><![endif]--></p>
<p><!--[if gte mso 9]><p><xml><br />
<w:WordDocument><br />
<w:View>Normal</w:View><br />
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom><br />
<w:TrackMoves></w:TrackMoves><br />
<w:TrackFormatting></w:TrackFormatting><br />
<w:DoNotShowRevisions></w:DoNotShowRevisions><br />
<w:DoNotPrintRevisions></w:DoNotPrintRevisions><br />
<w:DoNotShowMarkup></w:DoNotShowMarkup><br />
<w:DoNotShowComments></w:DoNotShowComments><br />
<w:DoNotShowInsertionsAndDeletions></w:DoNotShowInsertionsAndDeletions><br />
<w:DoNotShowPropertyChanges></w:DoNotShowPropertyChanges><br />
<w:PunctuationKerning></w:PunctuationKerning><br />
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas></w:ValidateAgainstSchemas><br />
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid><br />
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent><br />
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText><br />
<w:DoNotPromoteQF></w:DoNotPromoteQF><br />
<w:LidThemeOther>EN-GB</w:LidThemeOther><br />
<w:LidThemeAsian>ZH-CN</w:LidThemeAsian><br />
<w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript><br />
<w:Compatibility><br />
<w:BreakWrappedTables></w:BreakWrappedTables><br />
<w:SnapToGridInCell></w:SnapToGridInCell><br />
<w:WrapTextWithPunct></w:WrapTextWithPunct><br />
<w:UseAsianBreakRules></w:UseAsianBreakRules><br />
<w:DontGrowAutofit></w:DontGrowAutofit><br />
<w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark></w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark><br />
<w:EnableOpenTypeKerning></w:EnableOpenTypeKerning><br />
<w:DontFlipMirrorIndents></w:DontFlipMirrorIndents><br />
<w:OverrideTableStyleHps></w:OverrideTableStyleHps><br />
<w:UseFELayout></w:UseFELayout><br />
</w:Compatibility><br />
<m:mathPr><br />
<m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"></m:mathFont><br />
<m:brkBin m:val="before"></m:brkBin><br />
<m:brkBinSub m:val="&#45;-"></m:brkBinSub><br />
<m:smallFrac m:val="off"></m:smallFrac><br />
<m:dispDef></m:dispDef><br />
<m:lMargin m:val="0"></m:lMargin><br />
<m:rMargin m:val="0"></m:rMargin><br />
<m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"></m:defJc><br />
<m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"></m:wrapIndent><br />
<m:intLim m:val="subSup"></m:intLim><br />
<m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"></m:naryLim><br />
</m:mathPr></w:WordDocument><br />
</xml><![endif]--></p>
<!--[if gte mso 9]><p><xml><br />
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="false"<br />
DefSemiHidden="false" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99"<br />
LatentStyleCount="371"><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" QFormat="true" Name="Normal"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="index 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="index 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="index 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="index 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="index 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="index 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="index 7"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="index 8"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="index 9"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 7"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 8"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 9"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Normal Indent"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="footnote text"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="annotation text"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="header"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="footer"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="index heading"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="caption"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="table of figures"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="envelope address"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="envelope return"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="footnote reference"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="annotation reference"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="line number"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="page number"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="endnote reference"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="endnote text"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="table of authorities"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="macro"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="toa heading"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List Bullet"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List Number"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List Bullet 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List Bullet 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List Bullet 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List Bullet 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List Number 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List Number 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List Number 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List Number 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" QFormat="true" Name="Title"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Closing"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Signature"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Default Paragraph Font"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Body Text"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Body Text Indent"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List Continue"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List Continue 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List Continue 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List Continue 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="List Continue 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Message Header"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Salutation"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Date"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Body Text First Indent"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Body Text First Indent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Note Heading"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Body Text 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Body Text 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Body Text Indent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Body Text Indent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Block Text"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Hyperlink"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="FollowedHyperlink"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Document Map"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Plain Text"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="E-mail Signature"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="HTML Top of Form"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="HTML Bottom of Form"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Normal (Web)"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="HTML Acronym"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="HTML Address"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="HTML Cite"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="HTML Code"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="HTML Definition"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="HTML Keyboard"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="HTML Preformatted"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="HTML Sample"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="HTML Typewriter"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="HTML Variable"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Normal Table"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="annotation subject"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="No List"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Outline List 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Outline List 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Outline List 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Simple 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Simple 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Simple 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Classic 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Classic 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Classic 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Classic 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Colorful 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Colorful 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Colorful 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Columns 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Columns 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Columns 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Columns 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Columns 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Grid 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Grid 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Grid 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Grid 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Grid 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Grid 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Grid 7"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Grid 8"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table List 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table List 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table List 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table List 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table List 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table List 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table List 7"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table List 8"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table 3D effects 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table 3D effects 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table 3D effects 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Contemporary"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Elegant"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Professional"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Subtle 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Subtle 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Web 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Web 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Web 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Balloon Text"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"<br />
Name="Table Theme"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"<br />
Name="List Paragraph"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"<br />
Name="Intense Quote"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"<br />
Name="Subtle Emphasis"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"<br />
Name="Intense Emphasis"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"<br />
Name="Subtle Reference"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"<br />
Name="Intense Reference"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"<br />
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"<br />
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"<br />
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"<br />
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"<br />
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"<br />
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"<br />
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"<br />
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"<br />
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"<br />
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"<br />
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"<br />
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"<br />
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"<br />
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"<br />
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"<br />
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"<br />
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"<br />
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"<br />
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"<br />
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"<br />
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"<br />
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"<br />
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"<br />
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"<br />
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"<br />
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"<br />
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"<br />
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"<br />
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"<br />
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"<br />
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"<br />
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"<br />
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"<br />
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"<br />
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"<br />
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"<br />
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"></w:LsdException><br />
</w:LatentStyles><br />
</xml><![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 10]><style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:0cm;
mso-para-margin-right:0cm;
mso-para-margin-bottom:8.0pt;
mso-para-margin-left:0cm;
line-height:107%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}
</style><p><![endif]-->
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-left: 36.0pt; line-height: 110%;">What we need is a great big melting pot</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-left: 36.0pt; line-height: 110%;">Big enough to take the world and all it’s got<br /> And keep it stirring for a hundred years or more</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-left: 36.0pt; line-height: 110%;">And turn out coffee coloured people by the score</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That was perhaps, in 1969, quite a ‘progressive’ thought to throw into the popular culture pot (although ‘miscegenation’ has been going on throughout human history without yet producing a ‘coffee-coloured’ world; and doesn’t the latest science suggest that the rest of us are all descendants of a bunch of Africans who wandered out of their continent a hundred thousand years or less ago?) Young aleXis’ cauldron follows more up-to-date, liberal thinking in emphasising new diversity--"always rich"--as opposed to new homogeneity.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Yet one problem is that his girlfriend exists for us not as a person but only as a geographic or ‘racial’ token. All we learn about her is that she has a low bed, that she drinks very strong and very sweet mint tea, and that aleXis adores her “almond curves” and “the splendid arrogance of [her] nose, which is the gift of the Mediterranean to the universal beauty of women.” [744] He acknowledges and defends the concupiscent nature of his passion: “The properly polite thing is to prefer the whole being to the outward form, but the being cannot be seen except as manifested in the body.” (Il convient par politesse de préférer l’être à la forme, mais l’être ne se voit pas, sinon par le corps. [610] I can’t quite capture that elegance in English.) Okay; but surely that’s just the pick-up stage? Can’t we proceed to at least a peek at the being within the lovely curves? Not in this book. The 700+ pages of lyrical prose are overwhelmingly scored for male voices, with passing (and weak) contributions from Eurydice. Almond Big-Nose barely speaks at all and the immigrant masses of Voracieux-les-Bredins are seen, observed, but not heard. To be sure, Jenni might reasonably prefer to stick to what he knows best—the thoughts and feelings of white men—and leave the women and the immigrants to write their own books. But still, to incorporate a character from this Other world as a token—and a critically important one—rather than as a person, surely underlines Salagnon’s point that the racistshave “won . . . no matter whether for or against, people believe again in the division of humanity.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Even more troubling, though, is that we appear suddenly to be in a strange realm of morally imperative biology. “Sex draws us together and unites us; the veils people wear to disguise this truth are hateful.” [743] Hateful because they are opting out from the genetic free-for-all? Is the message, then, that it is okay to receive people from “elsewhere” as long as they are sexually available? That doesn’t seem quite proper to me. A purely descriptive biological determinism or ‘socio-biology’—the ‘we’re just naked apes’ story—is at least somewhat coherent, however upsetting to our ideas of freedom and responsibility. But claiming that biology tells how we <em>should</em> behave is quite another matter, and a dangerous one. After all, was it not just this kind of thinking that poisoned the revolutionary idea of universal equality with ‘survival of the fittest,’ ‘born to rule’ and ‘master race’ claptrap, and kicked off France’s horrible 20<sup>th</sup> century?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Détendez-vous!</strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Why would anyone in France care about imperial decline?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">French thinkers, after all, have continued to make a profound mark on the world, or at least the world of talk. From the existentialism of Camus and Sartre, through the semiotics of Roland Barthes, the structuralism of Claude Levi-Strauss, the de-construction of Jacques Derrida, the postmodernism of Jean-François Lyotard, to the whatever-you-call-it of Michel Foucault, has poured a stream of semi-intelligible ideas to stir up dull old Anglophone empiricism. Their contribution to ‘postmodernity’ today is no smaller than was the contribution of Voltaire, Rousseau and all the old<em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> philosophes </em>to the making of the modern, Western world. Without them, the new French intellectuals, the words ‘narrative,’ ‘discourse’ and ‘text’ would not pepper the work of today’s fine writers and professors of this and that, from Kansas to Kuala Lumpur. The ‘follow your dream’ and ‘be true to yourself’ mantras of corporate advertising froth owe a clear debt (a mere 50 years behind the intellectual trend) to existentialism, as the apotheosis of Western ‘individualism.’ And Frenchwomen have also spoken to the wider world. De Beauvoir was not just a major force in late 20<sup>th</sup> century feminism; her 1970 book, La Vieillesse (Old Age), meditated on matters now repeatedly echoed across the ‘greying’ first world. The other Simone, Ms. Weil, left a quieter but enduring mark in theology and moral philosophy.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">What’s more, France’s GDP is still pretty good, and a bit more evenly distributed than that of the USA or UK (as Thomas Piketty, the latest global, French intellectual, informs us). They have powerful multinationals, great cuisine (if you’re not a vegetarian), cool architects, expanding prospects for quality wine, cognac and architecture in Asian markets, and an exquisite <em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">langue</em> (to a British ear, anyway.) So why don’t they just relax? Like, say, the Netherlands, which, although harbouring some rather unsavoury elements, seems to have recovered more easily from the intoxication of imperial might. (Although, let me be clear, I know very little of their story.)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I don’t know the answer, but I fancy it must have something to do with the staggering scale, the vast conceit of France's revolutionary and Napoleonic imperial ambition, and the hitching of personal identity to the state, with the simultaneous forging of the thought that this conferred freedom, not subjection. What big things ideas are, and this was surely the mother of <em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">grands récits </em>that later French thinkers have been trying to unpick.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The only real analogue to France is her historic rival, Britain. In several ways, Britons had a softer landing than our Gallic cousins. We ‘won the war’ (World War II) we tell ourselves. The ploy of ‘Commonwealth’ was relatively successful as a face-saving colonial exit strategy. We’ve got big offspring: not just the USA, but cuddly Canada (well, barring Québec, anyway), Australia and New Zealand. And ours is the ‘global’ language. Such comforting thoughts long nourished an enduring smugness.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Yet it seems to me that Britain and France are still sailing in much the same waters. We have our share of outright racists, a lot of panic about immigration (although we need the labour to do our low-paid work, like looking after our aged parents), a lot of liberal anguish over ‘British Muslims’ who don’t seem to share ‘our values’—although it’s far from clear what 'our values' are—and a couple of million Scots who want to jump ship (after much sterling service in the engine room of empire, and a pretty good showing in the posh cabins too).</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">These identity crises are real--although by no means the first in either country’s history: identities never stood still. But I don’t think they have much to do with ‘race’ or ‘ethnicity’ or ‘culture.’ (Interesting how racial prejudice is now almost universally reviled, whereas deploring other people’s ‘culture’ is okay). I think they have more to do with configurations of power.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The people elsewhere, and especially in Africa, on whom France and Britain imposed the dubious gift of the nation state, are still struggling to make sense of it; and now, it seems, so are we. Somehow the state captured our identities, and somehow our elites captured the state. The political ideas of the ‘Enlightenment,’ especially in France, were inherently ambiguous, both ‘universalising’ and yet imposing a very specific, bureaucratic belonging and division of humanity. Small wonder, then, that questions about exactly who belongs where should become so intensely felt—especially at a time when the entitlements of ‘belonging’ to the old powers are being pared back.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">October 2, 2014 Kigali.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Endnote: </strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I would defend this rather damning judgment with a counter example: John Banville’s short novel, The Sea. Banville’s central character is an ageing art historian who, for more years than he cares to remember, has been trying to write a monograph on the French painter, Pierre Bonnard. From the very first page, the text is studded with pictures:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">The seabirds mewled and swooped, unnerved, it seemed by the spectacle of that vast bowl of water bulging like a blister, lead-blue and malignantly agleam. They looked unnaturally white, that day, those birds. The waves were depositing a fringe of soiled yellow foam along the waterline. [Picador, 2006, p. 3]</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Banville’s constant, detailed and intensely visual attention to form, colour and light, is all the more remarkable for the fact that, as the paperback’s blurb tells us, is not ‘about’ art at all, but about “memory and loss.”</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-addthis field--type-addthis field--label-above"><div class="field__label">AddThis:&nbsp;</div><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style " addthis:title="" addthis:url="https://nickyoungwrites.com/?q=bookshelf-one-cheer-democracy-zettel/france%E2%80%99s-post-imperial-stress-disorder"><a href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_facebook"></a>
<a href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_twitter"></a>
</div>
</div></div></div>Sat, 04 Oct 2014 12:16:02 +0000Nick Young105 at https://nickyoungwrites.comDon't fuck with Americahttps://nickyoungwrites.com/?q=bookshelf-one-cheer-democracy/dont-fuck-america
<div class="field field--name-taxonomy-vocabulary-11 field--type-taxonomy-term-reference field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><a href="/?q=bookshelf" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Bookshelf</a></div><div class="field__item odd"><a href="/?q=one-cheer-democracy" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">One Cheer for Democracy</a></div></div></div><div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even" property="content:encoded"><p class="MsoNormal"><strong>Captain Phillips</strong> (Directed by Paul Greengrass, 2013) </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The most interesting question about this morality tale of American power efficiently eliminating vermin is whether it should be seen merely as a feel-good pot boiler or whether its uncompromising resistance to depth betrays a wider anxiety about the way the world is going.</p>
<!--break-->
<p class="MsoNormal">Tom Hanks, captain of a container ship that is boarded by Somali pirates, turns in a polished performance as the decent man who responds to crisis with impressive, yet not extravagant, heroism. He was a better choice than, say, Harrison Ford, who excels in roles where the good man, </p>
<!--break--><p>finally goaded beyond endurance, comes out fighting and kicks ass. Hanks needs to be more ordinary than that, for the ass-kicking here is left to the military, with its hi-tech drones and Navy SEALs who pull off a flawless rescue. The emphasis is on collective not individual brilliance.</p>
<!--break-->
<p class="MsoNormal">The problem, in all ways, is with the Somalis. They are an irremediably stupid and vicious lot, squabbling, divided and duplicitous right from the start. They’re addicted to khat and nicotine. They’re not even good at ‘African’ things like walking with bare feet. The youngster who does so is promptly and improbably maimed by stepping on broken glass.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The only concession to a ‘back story’ is a five second sequence in which the lead pirate complains that international ships stole all of Somalia’s fish. This is left hanging for a while until Hanks, with a gun pressed to his head, utters the telling truth: “You’re not a fisherman!” So we can dispense with liberal hand-wringing about history and all that stuff, and just kill the bad guys with cool professionalism. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This, the film makers tell us, is “a true story.” Issues of cinematic licence aside, it barely needs saying that Hollywood is selective in the stories it tells. This one seems designed to reassure mass American audiences that all is well with the world; superior technology, surgical drone strikes and extrajudicial executions will prevail over evil and keep America safe.</p>
<p>This level of delusion is not so reassuring for audiences elsewhere. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Doubtless there are more nuanced movies coming out of the United States, but we don’t get to see them in Rwanda’s spanking new (and only) cinema, which confines itself to would-be blockbusters, with the volume turned up high and the air-con way down low. No chance of cat-napping to escape the high-production-value banality.</p>
<p>Interestingly, though, the freezing theatre has pulled in only a couple of dozen viewers, mostly expatriates, for this Saturday night showing. The local monied classes are probably disporting themselves in Kigali’s discreet clubs, which intersperse the afro-beat staple with a bit of gangsta rap. Equally banal, but at least it’s black guys saying don’t fuck with them. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><strong><em>P.S. Mandelamania</em></strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><em>We went to see this movie partly in order to escape the tide of Mandelamania sweeping the world that day. The radio and internet had become unbearable. Two interesting pieces did however eventually pierce our self-imposed media blackout. </em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://fpif.org/mandela-age-drones/">Mandela in the age of drones</a><em> was particularly apposite.</em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/09/if-nelson-mandela-really-had-won?CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2&amp;commentpage=5">If Nelson Mandela really had won, he wouldn’t be seen as a universal hero</a> <em>was also good. I have been struggling on and off for four years to read the author’s extraordinarily difficult book, </em>The<strong style="line-height: 1.538em;"><em> </em></strong>Parallax View. <em>This less demanding piece made me think it’s worth the effort of trying again.</em> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><em style="line-height: 1.538em;"><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">The subsequent “selfie picture" nonsense shows once again the chronic attention deficit disorder of the world’s mass media. After days of panegyric the story has to move on, so instead of more depth let’s find something trivial and gossipy to write about.</span><span style="line-height: 1.538em;"> </span><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">Yuk.</span></em></p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-addthis field--type-addthis field--label-above"><div class="field__label">AddThis:&nbsp;</div><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style " addthis:title="Don&#039;t fuck with America - nickyoungwrites.com" addthis:url="https://nickyoungwrites.com/?q=bookshelf-one-cheer-democracy/dont-fuck-america"><a href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_facebook"></a>
<a href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_twitter"></a>
</div>
</div></div></div>Sun, 08 Dec 2013 20:00:00 +0000Nick Young103 at https://nickyoungwrites.com“Imagining” genocidehttps://nickyoungwrites.com/?q=bookshelf-one-cheer-democracy/%E2%80%9Cimagining%E2%80%9D-genocide
<div class="field field--name-taxonomy-vocabulary-11 field--type-taxonomy-term-reference field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><a href="/?q=bookshelf" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Bookshelf</a></div><div class="field__item odd"><a href="/?q=one-cheer-democracy" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">One Cheer for Democracy</a></div></div></div><div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even" property="content:encoded"><p>Rwandans living or travelling in the West must, I imagine, hate encountering the casual question, “So where are you from?” The answer will surely evoke either polite confusion or else impertinent enquiry. Were you (or your parents) among the killers or the victims, the interlocutor is too likely to wonder, so notorious is the Rwanda genocide brand. And are you a Tutti or a Frutti, or whatever they’re called? If I were Rwandan I would definitely make a habit of claiming to originate from Burundi—a place so few people outside of Africa have heard of that you could be fairly sure of keeping the conversation on an innocuous keel.</p>
<p>Having this year happened to become a temporary resident of Rwanda, I felt the need to situate myself with a bit of reading. And it’s impossible to get away from the genocide as the defining publishing event. So here’s my response to five of the most readily available texts—one ‘novel,’ one memoir, one work of ‘reportage’, one of journalistic analysis, one of scholarship. I review these in the order I read them. Four were written by white North American men, so there was a clear risk that they might say more about North American men, and their way of seeing, than about Rwanda. That’s certainly the case with the first, which disturbed me most but taught me least. </p>
<!--break-->
<p><strong>SEXISTENTIALIST GENOCIDE</strong></p>
<p><span style="font-variant: SMALL-CAPS;">A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali<br /><em>by</em> Gil Courtemanche (Translated by Patricia Claxton)<br /> Canongate (Edinburgh) 2003, 258 pp</span></p>
<p>Gil Courtemanche is a competent enough writer to construct some vivid sentences, and his sentiments in this work of reportage-cum-fiction appear impeccably liberal—full of moral indignation and barbed contempt for aid bureaucrats, diplomats, UN peacekeepers etc, who did nothing to prevent the 1994 genocide. An example from the opening scene, a few weeks before the killing starts in earnest:</p>
<blockquote><p>Around the pool, Québécois and Belgian aid workers vie in loud laughter. The Belgians and Québécois aren’t friends: they don’t work together, even though they are working towards the same goal: ‘development.’ That magic word which dresses up the best and most irrelevant of intentions. The two groups are rivals, always explaining to the locals why their kind of development is better than the others’. [p. 3]</p></blockquote>
<p>Although rather easy, this kind of critique is fair enough and perhaps helps explain how the book topped Québec’s best-seller lists for a year after its publication in 2000 and earned numerous plaudits including the Prix des Libraires du Québec.</p>
<p>The point of turning a genocide into an adventure story is, I guess, to reach distant readers who want to understand what happened but feel daunted by a work of ‘non-fiction.’ Indeed, while Courtemanche was penning his, genocide novels were becoming something of a fin de siècle literary genre: see, eg, Matthew Kneale’s engaging English Passengers (2000), which starts lightly enough but ends with imperial Britain’s decimation of aboriginal people in Tasmania in the late 19th century; or André Brink’s more relentlessly dark The Other Side of Silence (2002), which recounts the early 20th century slaughter, by imperial Germany, of the Herero and Namaqua peoples of South West Africa. Reading these, I had moments of serious doubt about, especially, the proffered ‘insights’ into the way the slaughtered people saw things. But these were events and places of which I previously knew next to nothing, and of which I might have remained ignorant had these books not appeared in my Christmas stocking. So the task of literary infotainment was more or less accomplished.</p>
<p>A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali, however, casts little light on events of which no semi-educated person could have remained entirely ignorant at the close of the 20th century. Worse, for all its surface political correctness, the book’s cultural subtext is far more offensive than anything written by, say, Conrad.</p>
<p>Courtemanche’s hero is Bernard Valcourt, a veteran Québécois journalist who has covered the Vietnam war, the Cambodian genocide and the 1984 Ethiopian famine. He has been in Rwanda for a couple of years and, although he doesn’t speak Kinyarwanda, he has somehow developed deep insight into Rwandan culture, politics and everything else.</p>
<p>He has also developed a passion for a 24 year old waitress at the Hôtel des Mille Collines, where he lodges. Fair enough, that happens to old hacks. Less plausibly, however, Gentille, the waitress, returns Valcourt’s affections. And thus begins a life-affirming affair, which is both a foil to the surrounding hate and gore and the literary vehicle for exploring it.</p>
<p>We learn through an account of Gentille’s family background how fluid the Hutu-Tutsi distinction is. Many families shifted identity over time. Hers is half Hutu and half Tutsi because a wise, Hutu great- grandfather had seen which way the wind was blowing and began to prepare a Tutsi identity for his descendants. His reasoning was that the European colonialists decided that the Tutsi minority were of ‘Hamitic’ descent—that is, were white or nearly white once upon a time— and therefore favoured them for development and re-civilisation. Tutsifying one’s family was thus a clever ruse—except that in the 1950s the wind changed direction: the colonial church and state began to sympathise with the Hutu masses (the overwhelming majority), who gained political power on the eve of independence in 1962.</p>
<p>This historical background is alright as far as it goes (which is not far), but it is not supported by any sense of Gentille as a real person. She’s just a pretty, soon-to-be-victim thing. We hear often enough how delightful her breasts are, the nipples pertly pushing up against various kinds of cloth. (A sure hint that later on they’re going to be sliced off with a machete). And we hear about other parts of her body. When sitting on a friend’s terrace one night, just after “The staccato sounds of a volley of gunfire cascaded down the neighbouring hill,” [87] Valcourt confesses his love and “As if in eruption, all the juices of life ran between her trembling thighs. An orgasm from tenderness and words.” [88] Hmmm. Being neither a woman nor experienced in courtship under fire I can’t say for sure if this is physically possible. But it doesn’t strike me as very likely.</p>
<p>Another spontaneous orgasm comes when Valcourt reads Gentille verses by Paul Éluard (1895-1952). Éluard is a favourite of mine too, but I’m inclined to doubt that his lyrics could be quite such a potent aphrodisiac. Gentille certainly gets addicted, though. When she can’t sleep at night she sits out on Valcourt’s hotel balcony reading Éluard. Naked. Makes for a prettily erotic picture, but not a convincing one. Do young Rwandan women really sit outside naked at night? I don’t think so. Too cold, for one thing.</p>
<p>And what exactly does she see in this old guy who, to judge by how often he is found drinking warm beer or “half-corked Côtes-du-Rhône,” almost certainly has a pot belly? (We have to guess that, because the text dwells on his body far less than on hers.) The answer, it seems, is that he tried a little tenderness. Life is so tough, so filled with hate, and everyone has used her so hard, that Gentille is overwhelmed by Valcourt’s <em>gentillesse.</em></p>
<p>So much so that, when she ends up being imprisoned and repeatedly raped by a policeman, she notes in a journal—and what a clumsy literary device that is!—that:</p>
<blockquote><p>I wanted to caress him [the rapist] the way Bernard taught me to, not to caress him but to close my eyes and bring back memories with the tips of my fingers. [243]</p></blockquote>
<p>I don’t find that a convincing report of repeated rape. The message I’m getting, rather, is that it takes a Québecois to bring better sex and higher culture to darkest Africa—and so great are these gifts they can blot out any amount of local savagery.</p>
<p>Valcourt has a professional interest in sex because he is making a film about HIV/AIDS. (As did his creator, in real life.) We are therefore treated to quite extensive descriptions of the Rwandan sex trade. These often display chivalrous sympathy for the women and contempt for their clients (especially Belgian soldiers). Yet they also display something more like virile admiration for Cyprien, a tobacco vendor in the central market whose stated and all-but-accomplished aim in life is to bed every female stallholder, and who is also a regular visitor to low-end brothels.</p>
<p>Sex features as liberation too. Bizarrely, when Valcourt and Gentille publicly announce their engagement, Émérita, “a member of the fundamentalist Baptist church, dropped to her knees and intoned several verses from the Bible.” [152] A lifelong teetotaller, she then promptly downs a glass of champagne and willingly surrenders her virginity to the barman, Célestin, who has been harassing her for years. The next day she reports to Valcourt:</p>
<blockquote><p>Freedom, that’s what making love is. And last night, with my legs wrapped around Célestin’s body, nearly squeezing the breath out of him, and with his sweat on my breasts, I felt freedom. And I thanked God for letting me sin. I told him that I loved him even more than before, but I’d keep my distance from his pastors who tell us all our troubles are part of the divine Order. I told God—I was talking to him while Célestin was tearing my little veil and torturing me, before giving me pleasure like I’d never had before—I told him that his churches were using his divine Word to make us accept the injustices being done to us and the death being planned for us. [156]</p></blockquote>
<p>Wow! The novel is full of improbable, political speeches, but these can at least be seen as a clumsy effort to let Rwandans—or Courtemanche’s version of them—‘tell their own story.’ But this speech is on quite a different level. A fundamentalist Baptist is suddenly turned on to liquor, wanton sport and spouting half-baked existentialist claptrap to random foreigners. How could that be? Maybe it’s the magical influence of the only other book, alongside Éluard’s collected poems, that Valcourt brought with him to Rwanda: a collection of essays by Albert Camus.</p>
<p>All of this sex has the unfortunate consequence of high HIV prevalence. Valcourt ends up offering hospice facilities in his hotel room to Méthode, a bank clerk who has lived life to the full and is now dying of AIDS. In what seems like an anticipation of the fine film from Québec, The Barbarian Invasions (2003, directed by Denys Arcand), Méthode asks Valcourt and his buddies to ease him out with an ‘assisted death’. A Canadian nurse, Élise, supplies the morphine.</p>
<p>Before the lethal dose is administered, there has to be a life-affirming party. Buddies arrive with liquor and bar girls, one of whom is designated to give the bank clerk a final blow job. But Méthode is too near death to get it up. He requests instead that the woman sit on his face so that he can have a last drink from the life-bearing canal. His mother, a peasant woman from upcountry who has come to Kigali for the party, helps out. “Without a word, Mathilde undressed, and supported by his mother and Rapahël, applied her crotch to Méthode’s mouth.” [55]</p>
<p>This is preposterous. If I try really hard I can just about imagine some loopy, drugged-up, North American hippy mom participating in such a rite. Well, no, actually I withdraw that: I can’t. And I find it easier to imagine that the world is flat than to imagine a rural Rwandan mother, Hutu, Tutsi, or Twa, behaving like this.</p>
<p>The central problem here is that Courtemanche is inviting us to see a moral chaos which can be overwritten with <em>any</em> kind of story. Yet chaos is always in the eye of the beholder. The word fits most comfortably into the facile language of TV journalism: I’ve just landed, there’s a lot of shooting going, a lot of politics I can’t see, so it’s pretty chaotic, and it’s back to you in the studio, Kirsty. If you understand what’s going on, it’s not chaos, it’s just complicated. Courtemanche evidently does <em>not</em> understand what is going on; he’s just seeing an exciting background on which to paint a weird kind of wish-fulfilment porn.</p>
<p>An inescapable comparison is with Graham Greene’s The Quiet American (1955). Greene’s central character is Fowler, a 50-something, worn-out British journalist covering the Indochina (Vietnam) war, as Europe’s morally exhausted imperial powers prepare to pass the baton to the innocent Americans. Fowler is besotted with a 20 year old who fills his opium pipe and meets his sexual needs. We don’t learn anything about Phuong’s trembling thighs or life juices. Fowler does not introduce her to Auden or MacNeice. The narrative at no point tries to get ‘inside her head’—we see and hear only her gestures and her words. She is, clearly, both a sex object and a symbol of oriental ‘inscrutability’ and ‘passivity.’ Yet, for all that, she is a far more real person than Gentille, to the extent that when she forsakes sleazy old atheistic Fowler for a clean-living and God-fearing CIA youngster we can read this as a wrench for her, not just a predictable ‘cultural’ or mercenary reflex.</p>
<p>I am not sure what, if anything, to make of the fact that such a remarkable novel, pinpointing a fulcrum of history long before the world at large had noticed, came out of a time when news from far off places still reached us largely through newspapers. (Does all of today’s relentlessly chaotic TV footage in fact in some way encourage us to read anything we want into the pictures?) I am fairly sure, though, that if the world does not return to mass illiteracy, The Quiet American will still be read a century from now. Whereas, if I am the last person ever to read A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali it will be a fate well deserved.</p>
<p><strong>INDECISION: THE SOLDIER'S TALE</strong></p>
<p><span style="font-variant: SMALL-CAPS;"> Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda<br /><em>by</em> Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire<br /> Arrow (London) 2004, 562 pp.<br /></span></p>
<p>Roméo Dallaire commanded the UN peace-keepers sent to Rwanda in September 1993 to oversee an unpromising cease-fire and political accord. He and his troops ended up witnessing genocide. One might expect Dallaire’s account, written ten years later, to work hard at exculpating himself and shifting the blame. To some extent it does; yet it reads as a painfully honest, and therefore credible, account.</p>
<p>The main mark of honesty is the lack of any systematic or successful attempt to conceal an unfortunate quality of indecisiveness in the commander. At several key points when his own instinct was to act firmly—and when, on the analysis he presents here, he could have done so without flouting his mandate—he instead called New York for orders. He was invariably told to sit back and do nothing. For Dallaire’s own sake as well as for Rwanda’s, one wishes that he’d had the confidence to consult New York less. A court martial and jail term would have been preferable to what he has suffered since.</p>
<p>Indecision appears from the outset, in a short preface (which is stylistically so different from the rest of the text that it may be the only section written without the aid of research assistants.) Here we learn that, following the mission, the commander suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and attempted suicide. We also learn that during the writing his main research assistant became depressed and did in fact kill herself. And we learn that Dallaire had trouble deciding who to dedicate his book to. He deals with the quandary by dedicating it simultaneously to his family, to all the families of those who served with him in Rwanda, “to the Rwandans, abandoned to their fate, who were slaughtered in their hundreds of thousands,” to the 15 UN peacekeepers who died under his command, and to Sian Cansfield, the dead researcher. It’s the kind of decision that might be taken by a UN committee.</p>
<p>Dallaire was dealt an almost impossible hand. He was first sent to Rwanda in August, 1993, to assess what it would take to monitor implementation of a peace and power sharing agreement signed two months before in Arusha. He proposed a force of 5,000 well-trained and equipped troops. But, preoccupied with the Balkans and stung by a recent peacekeeping debacle in Somalia, the UN Security Council decided to send barely more than 2,000 men, equipped with a small fleet of clapped-out armoured personnel carriers.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, Dallaire disarmingly admits, he was proud to at last have a command of his own—for this had been his dream ever since lining up toy soldiers in a Montreal sand pit in the 1950s. As a young officer cadet he had a few tense moments in the 1970s, when the Canadian army was deployed, at the height of Québecois demands for independence, to keep the peace by pointing guns at angry civilians. (Dallaire sees this as a test of conscience and commitment—for he was a lower middle class francophone serving a predominantly anglophone ‘upper Canadian’ state. This, he implies, also helped him understand the rifts in Rwandan society.) But, in the main, he rose to high rank in Canada’s peaceable military through a series of managerial roles such as directing the army’s equipment and research programme, “a job I relished, since once of the overwhelming problems facing the Canadian military was the lack of expenditure and rational plan for the acquisition of the systems we needed to remain operational.” [37] The plans he conscientiously developed were basically ignored—just as his recommendations were ignored in Rwanda.</p>
<p>The UN force Dallaire eventually commanded included a substantial contingent of Bangladeshi soldiers, most of whom spoke neither English nor French and who arrived with nothing—sent by a government, Dallaire implies, that was mainly concerned to divest itself of responsibility for feeding them. He soon suspects that, when ordered out on a mission, the Bangladeshis are driving out of the camp, parking round the corner, lying low for a couple of hours and then coming back saying they couldn’t get past the roadblocks erected by local militias. When the bloodshed began in earnest, the Bangladeshi government insisted that their men be kept out of harm’s way. Commander Dallaire was never entirely in command even of his own force.</p>
<p>So too with a smaller Belgian contingent. They at least arrived with weapons and ration-packs, but also with the political baggage of the former colonial masters. They refused to stay in an army camp because Belgian protocol considered it humiliating for Belgian troops on African soil to lower themselves by sleeping in mere tents. So they filled up the hotels around town. And then they partied:</p>
<blockquote><p>My staff soon caught some of them bragging at the local bars that their troops had killed over two hundred Somalis and they knew how to kick “nigger” ass in Africa.” [113]</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>The Belgians were constantly being caught out of bounds in nightclubs that had been restricted for their own safety. They drank on patrol and got into barroom brawls, seemingly taking their cue from the French troops [<em>sent to support the government in the civil war</em>] who went dancing and drinking . . . with their personal weapons. One night, several drunken Belgian soldiers completely trashed the lobby of the Mille Collines, which was Kigali society’s favourite watering hole . . . There were Belgian soldiers who went absent without leave into Zaire and got up to heaven knows what . . .” [183]</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Inside Rwanda what they got up to certainly included “fraternising with Tutsi women” as Dallaire primly puts it. [183] This led to the local press publishing “obscene cartoons that implied that I, too, was involved in such behaviour.” [184] Next:</p>
<blockquote><p>A group of Belgian soldiers in civilian dress forced their way into the home of one of the heads of the extremist CDR party, Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza, and assaulted him in front of his family. The CDR had close links to the RTLM <em>[a notorious Hutu ‘hate-radio’ station]</em> which often carried negative stories about the Belgians. The soldiers badly beat the politician on his own doorstep and, just before they left, one of them aimed a gun at his head and warned him that if he or his party or the local media ever again insulted or threatened Belgium, Belgian expatriates or the Belgian contingent of UNAMIR, they would return and kill him. Barayagwiza immediately went public and wiped out any of the hard-won public sympathy we had achieved . . .” [184]</p></blockquote>
<p>Yet when the going got really tough, the Belgian government ordered its well-armed hooligans home.</p>
<p>This left Dallaire heavily dependent on a couple of hundred Ghanaian troops and a few dozen Tunisians. He repeatedly praises both contingents for their courage and discipline. Those accolades were likely deserved—and, if true, it’s an important truth that African troops did a more professional job than men from other continents. Yet Dallaire’s praise is undermined by how much of himself he has already revealed to us: those tales of toy warriors deployed across the living room floor. He must have so much wanted to make speeches about soldierly valour. He needed someone, in this horrible mess, to praise.</p>
<p>If the tools for the job were hardly adequate, the task itself was daunting, for the peace agreement was built on less than firm foundations.<br /> .<br /> The Arusha accords established an immediate ceasefire between the (overwhelmingly Hutu) government’s Rwanda Defence Forces and Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) fighters drawn mainly from Tutsi exiles whose families had fled the country during pogroms in 1959 and 1963, when political power was transferring from Tutsi to Hutu. For thirty years, the government of Rwanda showed no inclination to allow them back. In October 1990 an armed group of exiles entered the country from Uganda, where many of them had grown up and gained military experience by enlisting with Yoweri Museveni’s guerrilla National Resistance Army, which fought its way to power in 1986.</p>
<p>At first, Rwandan government and French troops easily repelled the RPF offensive, inflicting heavy casualties. The RPF military commander, Fred Rwigyema, was among the first to fall. But then the command went to Paul Kagame, who Dallaire describes as “possibly one of the greatest practitioners of manoeuvre warfare in modern military history.” [288] (More indecisiveness: why the double qualification: “possibly one of?”) Kagame regrouped, expanded and trained the RPF in the inhospitable terrain of the Virunga volcanoes, led assaults against military positions, steadily occupied slivers of the north and, by 1993, looked well placed to take over the country, if only the French would go away.</p>
<p>The Arusha accords proposed a transitional government in which the ruling party and the RPF would each have five cabinet seats, and a further eleven would be distributed across a constellation of recently-created, internal opposition parties. The national army would be reconstituted in a ratio of 60:40 of original government troops and RPF fighters. This was—to anticipate somewhat the analysis of the last of the five books considered here—a massive win on paper for the RPF, a massive power give-away by the government of Juvénal Habiryama and, at the same time, a clear opening for Hutu factions who were bitterly opposed to ceding so much to the RPF. With hindsight, the Arusha agreement looks no more likely to secure lasting peace than the Treaty of Versailles, and in the event none of its provisions were implemented.</p>
<p>Dallaire admits—with, again, disarming honesty—that when first contacted with news of his command, he didn’t know where Rwanda was. Mugging up on the place was made difficult by the daily demands of the UN system, which “forced [him] to fight a petty internal war over vehicles and office supplies.” [107] He is too prim to say outright that he couldn’t abide Per Hallqvist, the Norwegian UN logistician who “made it clear to me that he was a stickler for process and that he expected it to take upwards of six months before UNAMIR’s administrative and logistical support system was fully functional.” [99] By then nearly a million people would be dead.</p>
<p>The Lt-General makes less effort to conceal his contempt for the UNAMIR (UN Assistance Mission in Rwanda) political head, Jacques-Roger Booh Booh (a former Cameroonian diplomat and friend of then UN Secretary General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali):</p>
<blockquote><p>A proper gentleman who kept diplomatic working hours . . . rarely in his office before ten, took a full two-hour lunch and left the office before five. He made it clear he was not to be tracked down and disturbed on the week-ends unless there was a dire emergency. He seemed to bring nothing new to the table in the way of expertise on Rwanda, knowledge of the conflict, familiarity with the Arusha accords, or skill at identifying and dealing with the political intrigues of the nation.” [118]</p></blockquote>
<p>And when the flow of blood became a torrent, Booh Booh simply ran away.</p>
<p>So there was Dallaire, doing his level best not just to keep his troops fed, sober and mobile, not just to observe and keep the peace, but also running round the country trying to nudge the two sides towards keeping to the Arusha timetable. Farcically, he ended up serving as an interpreter in several meetings between francophone Rwandan army chiefs and anglophone RPF leaders.</p>
<p>In January 1994, Dallaire received credible evidence that a mass slaughter was being planned. An officer in the Presidential Guard, hoping to receive safe passage into “a friendly Western nation,” revealed that death squads were being trained, lists of victims drawn up, and weapons cached at various points around Kigali. (When Dallaire later shared this information with Western diplomats in Kigali, “None of them appeared to be surprised, which led me to conclude that our informant was merely confirming what they already knew.” [148]). On first receiving the information, however, Dallaire immediately “made the decision to go after the weapons caches. I had to catch these guys off guard, send them a signal that I knew who they were and what they were up to . . . it was well within my mandate and capabilities.” [144]</p>
<p>Before doing so, however, he sent a cable “informing New York of my intentions,” partly, it seems, to cover his back in case this was some kind of elaborate trap. Kofi Annan, the head of UN peacekeeping operations at the time, immediately instructed him on no account to take action. Instead, in order to demonstrate neutrality, he was told to pass on the information he had received to none other than President Habyarimana. And thus was lost a—perhaps, who knows, only slight—chance of nipping the genocide in the bud. Kofi Annan bears the major responsibility for this catastrophic omission, but Dallaire is still “haunted” by his “failure to persuade New York to act.” [147]</p>
<p>Over the next three months sporadic violence against Tutsis spread while the most extreme forces in the Hutu political structure steadily won ground. On April 6, Habyarimana’s plane was shot down as he returned from a meeting in Tanzania. According to most evidence, including a recent ruling by a French court following a detailed investigation, the missile came from the government’s army base: this was an extremist coup. Within hours, the presidential guard began assassinating moderate Hutu political leaders, and then the Hutu militias set about the mass slaughter of Tutsis—a process that did not stop until Kagame’s Rwanda Patriotic Front resumed its offensive and, within a couple of months, established control over most of the country.</p>
<p>Speaking to New York on April 7, Dallaire, who had frequently wanted at least to fire warning shots over the heads of marauding mobs, was told “UNAMIR is not, repeat not, to fire unless fired upon.” [229] Eight days later, when the scale of the ensuing massacre was beginning to penetrate the UN bureaucratic fog, he received a cable from New York saying “In the abnormal circumstances prevailing, these orders [to do nothing unless shot at] may be overridden at the discretion of the . . . FC [Force Commander], for humanitarian reasons.” [299] Not surprisingly, Dallaire “felt sickened as I read.” Nausea at the bureaucratic backpedalling was in itself understandable. For Dallaire, it must surely have been infected with the thought that, had he exercised a “prerogrative to take offensive action for humanitarian reasons” he might have saved many lives and won the argument later.</p>
<p>By now it was too late, because the Security Council decided that the peace agreement had broken down irretrievably and therefore the UN force should withdraw altogether. The US government of Bill Clinton and the UK government of John Major led the way in arguing that the best plan was to do nothing.</p>
<p>The UN sent Dallaire on one last wild goose chase, to look for Hutu ‘moderate’ leaders (who by then had all been killed) and try to broker a ceasefire between the RPF and the Rwandan army, much of which was already fleeing, along with the orchestrators of the genocide, to Zaire. The dutiful soldier tried his best, before finally cracking up and shooting at scavenging dogs that were pestering his pet goats in the UN compound.</p>
<p>It feels almost tasteless, given the scale of the Rwandan holocaust, to dwell much on the lot of just one protagonist, but my heart went out to this rather prim and pompous but evidently kind and decent man.</p>
<p><strong>THE REFINED VOYEUR</strong></p>
<p><span style="font-variant: SMALL-CAPS;"> We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families<br /><em>by</em>Philip Gourevitch<br /> Picador (New York) 1998, 356 pp </span></p>
<p>“[T]his is a book about how people imagine themselves and one another—a book about how we imagine our world,” its preface tells us [6]. Oh dear, I thought, steeling myself for a hefty dose of ‘postmodern’ literary conceit. The word ‘narrative’ would doubtless speckle the text.</p>
<p>The first chapter finds Gourevitch tramping around Nyarubuye church in 1995, a genocide memorial site where massacred corpses were left to rot into testimonial skeletons. He examines his own feelings as he accidentally treads upon and crushes a human skull. And he invites us to admit that we are accessories in this act of ghoulish voyeurism:</p>
<blockquote><p>Like Leontius, the young Athenian in Plato, I presume that you are reading this because you desire a closer look, and that you, too, are properly disturbed by your curiosity. [p. 19]</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I was tempted at this point to plead innocence and close the book forever. (Leontius! Give us a break! And I’m actually only reading this because I happened to pitch up in Rwanda, Pip!) I soldiered on partly because Gourevitch’s own family were Nazi holocaust refugees—which, I had to admit, contextualises his voyeurism—but mainly because there were signs of intelligence, not just erudition, beginning to break through the Platonic veil of fine writing.</p>
<p>One virtue of the book is that, once settled in, Gourevitch tells the story through testimony from just a handful of survivors. (Mostly now doing rather well; but he does make the effort also to track down and talk to perpetrators, including an Adventist priest who received the doleful handwritten note from which the book takes its title, who apparently responded by guiding the militias toward their victims, and who later ran away to America where he was, at Gourevtich’s writing, living in material if not moral comfort). This approach is more intimate and coherent than trying to grapple with the whole, and it is competently delivered.</p>
<p>Gourevitch has also read enough to begin placing the events of 1994 in historical context, which he does quite elegantly (in Chapter 4) without making too many demands on the reader’s attention. Historians, of course, might justly complain that where there’s no pain, there’s no gain. Gourevitch tells us, for example, that Rwanda has a long record of the ‘orderly’ neatness and social organisation that visitors find today —and which outside commentators too readily now ascribe to the ‘authoritarian’ or, more generously, ‘effective’ nature of the Kagame government. This seems a relevant observation to me, but also, without further analysis, a rather risqué one: for it invites a cultural template story—of a kind that is still, oddly, intellectually permissible in an officially post-racist world—to help explain the genocide: people were just doing what they were told, as usual, because obedience was their cultural default mode. Not far down that road lies a world of stagnant, ‘timeless’, ‘mediaeval’ oriental and African culture, inured to despotism and needing to be energised by a good dose of European enlightenment: precisely the world that European imperialism ‘discovered.’</p>
<p>Talking of which, Gourevitch gives too much weight to John Hannington Speke in authoring the racist, ‘Tutsis are Hamitic’ thesis. Those 19th century pith helmeted explorer chaps were, surely, only ‘confirming’ instances of the general race theories spawned by the ‘Enlightenment.’ But Speke was a colourful and energetic racist, and journalists need colourful characters, so Speke ends up as spekesperson for the then prevailing, white worldview.</p>
<p>With at least some historical background, and the foreground of multiple visits and interviews, Gourevitch easily dismisses “theories of collective madness, mob mania, a fever of hatred erupted into a mass crime of passion . . . the blind orgy of the mob . . .” [17] as in any way explaining or even describing the genocide. Like many other commentators, he points to the fact that it was implemented as “work”; gangs slaughtered in the mornings, went home for lunch, and then back to work in the afternoon. Instead of frenzy, he argues compellingly that “it required a dogged uphill effort for Habyarimana’s extremist entourage to prevent Rwanda from slipping toward moderation.” [95] In place of the ‘mass bloodletting’ account, he arrives at his own genocide thesis:</p>
<blockquote><p>Genocide, after all, is an exercise in community building. A vigorous totalitarian order requires that the people be invested in the leader’s scheme, and while genocide may be the most perverse and ambitious means to this end it is also the most comprehensive. In 1994, Rwanda was regarded in much the rest of the word as the exemplary instance of the chaos and anarchy associated with collapsed states. In fact the genocide was the product of order, authoritarianism, decades of modern political theorizing and indoctrination, and one of the most meticulously administered states in history. And strange as it may sound, the ideology—or what Rwandans call “the logic”—of genocide was promoted as a way not to create suffering but to alleviate it. The spectre of an absolute menace that requires absolute eradication binds leader and people in a hermetic utopian embrace, and the individual—always an annoyance to totality—ceases to exist. [ 95]</p></blockquote>
<p>This is thoughtful and there may be sense in it—although the emphasis on a ‘totalitarian’, ‘authoritarian’ and ‘meticulously organised’ state tends to suggest that the ghost of Nazi Germany, as well a dash of cultural determinism, are colouring the analysis.</p>
<p>The significant added value and interest of Gourevitch’s book, though, is that it goes beyond the genocide to consider events unfolding as he wrote, in the late 1990s. This forces him into acts not just of political imagination but of political judgment.</p>
<p>Poor Lt-General Dallaire devoted a lot of space and suppressed rage to the immediate aftermath of the genocide. While the UN Security Council dithered, France burst centre stage with a ‘humanitarian’ Operation Turquoise to establish a protected zone in the west of the country, along the border with Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) towards which the Rwandan army and genocide perpetrators were fleeing the advance of Kagame’s forces. The ostensible aim of the French ‘operation’ was to prevent a counter-massacre. Its effect was to guarantee safe passage for the killers. Well over a million people made their way into camps across the border into the DRC, where UN agencies and NGOs received and succoured them. While Kagame’s forces took control of a devastated and depopulated country, the command structures of the ousted regime and militias were preserved intact within the camps. While fed and supplied by ‘the international community’, the political leadership in these camps not only plotted and dreamed of recapturing power in Rwanda but also launched forays within the DRC to terrorise and eliminate Tutsi farming families who had settled there many generations previously.</p>
<p>Dallaire was writing about these events in the early 2000s. Gourevitch, with less benefit of hindsight, did not shrink from exercising judgement at a time when many international NGOs and media—bowing to the gods of ‘human rights’ and ‘balance’—were still spreading and equalising blame with an ‘atrocities on both sides’ story that underpinned “the logic” of Operation Turquoise and the humanitarian effort to aid the <em>génocidaires.</em> Gourevitch accurately captures and implicitly rejects this moral comfort zone:</p>
<blockquote><p>The safest position is the human rights position, which measures all regimes on a strictly negative scale as the sum of their crimes and abuses: if you damn all offenders and some later mend their ways, you can always take credit for your good influence. [188]</p></blockquote>
<p>And he bars no holds in describing the “unbearable” spectacle of:</p>
<blockquote><p>. . . hundreds of international humanitarians being openly exploited as caterers to what was probably the single largest society of fugitive criminals against humanity ever assembled.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>Aid agencies provided transportation, meeting places, and office supplies to the RDR [<em>Rassemblement Democratique pour la Retour, a front organisation of genocide leaders</em>] and paramilitary groups that masqueraded as community self-help agencies; they fattened the war coffers of the Hutu Power elites by renting trucks and buses from them, and by hiring as refugee employees the candidates advanced through an in-house patronage system managed by the <em>génocidaires</em>. Some aid workers even hired Hutu Power pop star Simon Bikindi—lyricist of the <em>interahamwe</em> anthem “I hate these Hutus” [<em>intended to inspire dread of the Tutsi threat</em>]—to perform with his band at a party. In the border camps in Tanzania, I met a group of doctors, recently arrived from Europe, who told me how much fun the refugees were. “You can tell by their eyes who the innocent ones are,” said a doctor from—of all places—Sarajevo. And a colleague of hers said, “They wanted to show us a video of Rwanda in 1994, but we decided it would be too upsetting.” [266-7]</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Nevertheless, Gourevitch does due diligence in investigating allegations of Tutsi atrocities, and finds charges that stick. Kagame at the time was pressing the UN to close the camps so that the refugees could return to Rwanda and be integrated into the ‘one-nation’ society he was seemingly determined to create—although for many fugitives this would mean facing either judicial or reconciliation tribunals, depending on their degree of guilt. When the UN prevaricated as usual, Kagame sent in Rwandan troops to close those camps that had been established within Rwandan territory. For the most part, Gourevitch finds, this was done peacefully enough. But there were abuses and, in one instance a serious massacre, of perhaps several hundred people, which Gourevitch painstakingly documents through eye-witness reports. He is clear, though, that this ‘human rights abuse’ did not even begin to suggest any moral ‘equivalence’ in ‘bloodletting.’</p>
<p>Does this make him partisan? The following portrait of Paul Kagame does border on panegyric:</p>
<blockquote><p>He always sounded so soothingly sane, even when he was describing, with characteristic bluntness, the endless discouragements and continued anguish that surely lay ahead. He spoke of all the woes of his tiny trashed country as a set of problems to be solved, and he seemed to relish the challenge. He was a man of rare scope—a man of action with an acute human and political intelligence. It appeared impossible to discover an angle to the history he was born into and was making that he hadn’t already reckoned. And where others saw defeat, he saw opportunity. He was, after all, a revolutionary; for more than fifteen years, his life had consisted of overthrowing dictators and establishing new states in the harshest of circumstances.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>Because he was not an ideologue, Kagame was often called a pragmatist. But that suggests an indifference to principle and, with a soldier’s stark habits of mind, he sought to make a principle of being rational. Reason can be ruthless, and Kagame, who had emerged in ruthless times, was convinced that with reason he could bend all that was twisted in Rwanda straighter, that the country and its people truly could be changed—made saner; and so better—and he meant to prove it. The process might be ugly: against those who preferred violence to reason, Kagame was ready to fight, and, unlike most politicians, when he spoke or took action, he aimed to be understood, not to be loved. So he made himself clear, and he could be remarkably persuasive. [224-225]</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This seems tinged with a young reporter’s awe—spiced too, perhaps, with a dash of satisfaction at his own access to big men. (He also had good access to Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, who he treats with similar respect.) But Gourevitch is not just star-struck here. “A soldier’s stark habits of mind.” That’s a perceptive phrase. More importantly, he shows insight into “the continued anguish that surely lay ahead.”</p>
<p>One issue he confronts is the influx of Tutsi exiles returning from Uganda, DRC, Tanzania, Europe, Canada, the USA. Many were arriving with bright ideas, some with bright coins to invest in rebuilding a new version of the nation. Not surprisingly, though, Gourevitch found that Hutus who strenuously denied any involvement in the genocide felt a bit left out of the forward plan. So, it seems, did many of the genocide survivors, who found themselves regarded as ‘traumatised,’ not quite balanced enough to assume duties of office, needing ‘psycho social counselling’ instead.</p>
<p>Diasporan Rwandans have continued to return, bringing administrative and managerial skills that are in clear demand. It is not easy for the outsider to get much sense of the composition of this influx. For, while earlier post-independence regimes maintained the colonial practice of issuing identity cards that classified people as Hutu or Tutsi, the ruling party line now expressly disavows any notion of difference: everyone is simply Rwandan and further enquiry is, if not quite prohibited, definitely frowned upon.</p>
<p>A ‘one nation, one people, one citizenship’ story was perhaps the only kind the post-genocide government could begin to tell. Yet, granted that Hutu and Tutsi identities were burnished into divisive significance by European imperial greed, narcissism and stupidity, they surely can’t be dissolved by an act of political imagination without, at least, demonstrable delivery of equal rights and opportunities.</p>
<p>By nearly all accounts, Kagame’s government has done well both in growing the economy and in making sure that the rising tide lifts all boats to at least some extent. Yet a half-hour drive round Kigali nonetheless reveals the familiar hallmarks of an elite building comfortable nests.</p>
<p>Who are the nest-builders? I don’t know. However, in April this year, while reading Gourevitch’s book, I picked up a shard or two of local perspective from less privileged folk by tagging along with a ‘genocide memorial march’ through our upper-crust neighbourhood. (Conjugal circumstance has placed me in a street once known as the ‘Avenue de Ministres.’ Ours is a spacious but relatively modest bungalow with dysfunctional plumbing; much like the one, a couple of blocks away, where Roméo Dallaire stayed during his unhappy residence. But along the avenue some distinctly ostentatious mansions are sprouting out of the red earth, backing on to the lawns of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As far as I know, public service salaries are now too low, and opportunities for graft too few, for these to be ministerial residences. But it’s clear enough that there’s a fair bit of money about our neighbourhood.)</p>
<p>Genocide memorial marches are now an established part of an annual, 100 day period in which the events of 1994 are commemorated and reflected upon. Major employers, public and private, organise their own events, as does every neighbourhood. Ours comprised a kilometre trudge from the local ‘cell’ headquarters, newly built on a patch of land quite a way downhill from the Avenue de Ministres, to the nearest memorial site (a school campus where hiding Tutsi families were slaughtered). Prayers and speeches there were followed by a more disorderly romp back to the cell HQ, where more speeches would be rounded off by an all-night bonfire, flames being a symbol of mourning. I didn’t stay for the second round of speeches, partly because they were all in Kinyarawanda—a language of which I remain entirely ignorant—but also because I didn’t much like the style of an evangelical preacher who assumed the podium early on. You didn’t need any Kinyarwanda to recognise the Bible-thumping style. And where were he and his Bible, I couldn’t help wondering, while the killing went on.</p>
<p>During the initial trudge I was befriended by several pleasant young men who spoke a smattering of English or French. They were not well-heeled enough to pace the atriums of the nouveau rich mansions, appearing more representative of the downhill classes who made up the ‘masses’ that day. I was interested in the fact that altogether we numbered rather less than 200 people, which didn’t feel many to me. Yes, they agreed, numbers were disappointing, very low, it was a real shame. (None, however, was able to give a confident estimate of our neighbourhood catchment area: guesses started at 5,000 people—which would mean that our commemorative march captured less than 5% of the local populace). Every house had received a photocopied notice appealing, in a mixture of English, French and Kinyarwanda, for “funds, ideas and participation” in the event. (This was the flyer that mobilised me). What about all the big houses we were trooping past, I enquired, where were their occupants? “They’re all too busy,” said one of my new friends. “They weren’t here during the genocide,” said another.</p>
<p>Is the ongoing process of capital and class formation evenly distributed between Tutsi and Hutu? I don’t know. But it seems like a relevant question to ask.</p>
<p><strong>THE CONFLICTED ADMIRER</strong></p>
<p><span style="font-variant: SMALL-CAPS;"> A Thousand Hills: Rwanda's Rebirth And The Man Who Dreamed It<br /><em>by</em> Stephen Kinzer<br /> Wiley (New Jersey) 2008, 380 pp </span></p>
<p>By now I’ve got the gist and, unless Kinzer offers a radically different reading of the genocide, all I can pick up here is additional anecdote. His story does not in fact differ much in detail from those of Dallaire (whose book he quotes at length) or Gourevitch, but he takes us ten years further forward and weaves in a biography of Paul Kagame, who he interviews and quotes copiously.</p>
<p>This makes for a very large canvas that is covered in a punctiliously accessible style—more Newsweek than New York Review of Books—which makes it a quick and easy read, but also a rather shallow one. I experienced moments of nostalgia for Gourevitch’s fine writing.</p>
<p>The portraits that emerge—of Kagame and the national “re-birth” he “dreamed”—are highly sympathetic, indeed admiring, and at times breathless. Yet this is offset by a frequent reflex of ceding ground to opposing views. For example, in the closing chapter, Kinzer discusses whether groups like Human Rights Watch are unfair in their relentless critiques of ‘human rights abuses’ in Rwanda under Kagame. He initially concludes:</p>
<p>Rwandan leaders have sought to shape a governing system that meets their country’s unique needs in an unimaginably delicate period. Under the umbrella of authoritarian rule, they have stabilized their country and set it on a path toward a better future. That is what ordinary Rwandans care about. They have little interest in politics or ideology. Most sense that their lives are slowly improving. They are happy that President Kagame has centralized so much power in his own hands and are not fearful that he is becoming a dictator. [331]</p>
<p>That seems unequivocal even if one may legitimately wonder how Kinzer knows what “ordinary Rwandans care about,” given the amount of time he spends assembling a cast of <em>foreign</em> enthusiasts as key witnesses: “Andrew Young, the former Atlanta mayor . . . Kevin Terry, British-born mining engineer . . . Tim Schilling, agronomist from Texas . . . Peter Shchonherr, ambassador of the Netherlands . . . Alicea Lilly, director of a project to protect Rwanda’s mountain gorillas . . . Raj Rajendran, Indian-born businessman.” [3-4] Applause also comes from evangelical American Christians (who Kagame seems to welcome, or at least not much to mind), numerous Western business leaders and pundits who consider Kagame an exemplar of ‘leadership,’ and “almost every non-Rwandan in Rwanda” [333]. Perhaps this is a tactical move: writing for a middle-brow American readership, Kinzer maybe thinks they will find such sources more credible than the rabble of “ordinary Rwandans” who can only “sense” that things are getting better.</p>
<p>In addition to Kagame’s, the Rwandan opinion Kinzer cites on these matters comes largely from a few individuals, such as the returned émigré owner of La Republika, a “chic” restaurant whose 2004 opening “may be seen as a turning point in Rwanda’s modern social history.” (314—an example of Kinzer’s breathless streak.) In her view:</p>
<blockquote><p>People need to understand that if there are controls in terms of security it’s because of what happened in 1994. We need it. We want it. We’re happy, so leave us alone. I’m not even remotely political, but Rwanda is free and secure. That’s all I require, so who is human-rights whatever to tell me I’m not free?” [331]</p></blockquote>
<p>She may be “arrestingly statuesque” and “impeccably stylish, with eyes that sparkle even more brightly than the silver bracelets she favours” [312], but hers is, by definition an elite, returnee view, not necessarily representative of “ordinary Rwandans.”</p>
<p>And only two pages after telling us what ordinary Rwandans care about, Kinzer delivers a counter-punch in the quoted words of “one former cabinet minister”:</p>
<blockquote><p>Hutu resistance has floundered up to now for reasons related to the genocide. It’s easy to say ‘Those <em>génocidaires! </em>’ But with time that will seem a flimsy argument. There is intense resistance in Rwanda—not publicly, but in the minds of people. If avenues are closed, there will be violent change at some time.” [333]</p></blockquote>
<p>Kinzer seems to endorse this view, at least to the extent that he repeatedly mentions the risk of future conflagration. (“Huge numbers of onetime killers and their supporters live [in Rwanda] . . . In this climate, permitting European-style democracy would be sheer folly.” [337]) But he can’t have it both ways. Either ordinary Rwandans are gratefully following their leader, or huge numbers have minds filled with “intense resistance.” Not both.</p>
<p>A similar ambiguity runs through the whirlwind coverage of events in the closing years of the 20th century. The refugee/fugitive camps across the border in Zaire/DRC gave the ousted regime a base for launching a counter-offensive. The UN, ‘international community’ and Zaire’s then president, the avaricious dictator Mobutu, showed no inclination to disarm and dismantle the camps, so Kagame took on the job, sending in troops to partner with a Congolese rebel warlord of long standing, Laurent Kabila. Their combined force attacked the camps, routed the armed resistance and sent at least 550,000 Hutu refugees walking back to their former homes in Rwanda. The Kabila-Rwanda force then marched a thousand kilometres to Kinshasha, deposed Mobutu and installed Kabila as president of a new Democratic Republic of Congo.</p>
<p>This was nothing if not audacious and for a while it ensured a Kinshasa government sympathetic to Rwanda under Kagame. But the honeymoon was short. Within less than a year Kabila “switched sides. He would not have come to power without help from Rwanda, but after a remarkably short time in office he turned against his patrons and embraced their sworn enemies.” [206] He allowed and probably abetted the former Rwandan army and militias to regroup on the Rwandan border. From there, “more than thirty thousand insurgents” [207] poured back into Rwanda, plunging the north of the country back into a gruesome civil war of several years’ duration.</p>
<p>In response, in 1998, Kagame sent a punitive military expedition into the DRC, initially in alliance with Ugandan forces. But this did not go well. This time they met fierce resistance from Kabila’s army, supported by troops from Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe. “Most unexpectedly, allied Rwandan and Ugandan forces turned against each other and fought battles around the prized Congolese city of Kisangani.” [211] Rivalry to control the region’s precious minerals was the presumed reason for those battles. The invading forces did not leave the DRC until 2002, following the assassination of Laurent Kabila and the accession to the presidential throne of his son, Joseph, who “turned out to be a skilful conciliator.” [218]</p>
<p>These events are sketched only in brief outline, but leave Kinzer in no doubt that Kagame’s troops committed “gross human rights violations” [215] in their eventually successful campaign forcibly to pacify northern Rwanda:</p>
<blockquote><p>Soldiers saw every civilian as a potential enemy, and in threatening situations they shot first. When they were attacked, they often returned in force to conduct murderous revenge sweeps. They herded tens of thousands of people into guarded camps and turned large areas into free-fire zones. Bodies of some victims are said to have been burned or buried in mass graves. [213]</p></blockquote>
<p>Kinzer is also at least implicitly critical of the second incursion into the DRC, where he evidently suspects (against Kagame’s adamant denials) that Rwandan as well as Ugandan forces were involved in looting minerals.</p>
<p>Yet, at this stage of the plot, Kinzer seems largely to accept Kagame’s argument that the notion of human rights was specious in the real-world mess of the genocide’s aftermath. Establishing security and stability within Rwanda’s borders was the absolute and overriding imperative, the sine qua non of any other development or right.</p>
<p>As to destabilisation of the Eastern DRC—the violence and lawlessness that have wracked the region for more than a decade—Kinzer is able, with Kagame, to point the finger at an “ultimate” culprit:</p>
<blockquote><p>If the Rwandan invasion of 1998 was among the factors that provoked this holocaust, ultimate responsibility lies with those who allowed the defeated forces of Rwanda’s genocidal regime to re-group in the Congo (then Zaire). France was their chief patron. French intercession with the Mobuto regime made it possible for the defeated army to enter the Congo with all its weaponry. France then encouraged that army to believe it could fight its way back to power in Kigali. [219]</p></blockquote>
<p>Altogether, then, Kinzer seems to be assessing Kagame and his “dream” for Rwanda, on results (within Rwanda) rather than adherence to any metaphorical or literal human rights convention. In short, classical utilitarianism dressed in the new language of ‘pragmatism.’ And he is in no doubt that the results are impressive.</p>
<blockquote><p>[Kagame] has accomplished something truly remarkable. The contrast between where Rwanda is today and where most people would have guessed it to be today in the wake of the 1994 genocide is astonishing. [337]</p></blockquote>
<p>By 2000, the country was more or less at peace. Hutu soldiers were incorporated into the new Rwandan Defence Forces, and a Hutu genocide suspect was appointed governor of the northern province in a classic, realpolitik compromise. Having formally won the presidency in 2003 (by a 95% margin that Kinzer feels was dubious), Kagame set about creating a new administrative culture, stripping ministers and senior public servants of their luxury SUVs and sacking those who failed to deliver on performance management targets or who smelt even slightly of graft. By 2007, when Kinzer was writing, the country was winning plaudits from many international sources for its developmental success, and it has continued to do so.</p>
<p>In sum, Kinzer appears to believe that the end justified means that, although not squeaky clean by Human Rights Watch’s book, were not merely venal or massively murderous. This is a coherent and defensible position. (Although, understandably, when writing for a primarily American audience it would not be politic to slaughter the holy cows of human rights and democracy too casually. This may account for some of Kinzer’s equivocation.)</p>
<p>Yet, in the closing pages, he appears suddenly to back off, or at least point to a ‘catch-22’:</p>
<blockquote><p>One of President Kagame’s themes is the need for Rwanda to develop strong institutions. If such institutions emerge, though, they will inevitably challenge him. There is no prospect of this happening soon. From lowly submayors to generals and Supreme Court justices, officials tremble at the prospect of his wrath. [333-334]</p></blockquote>
<p>Kinzer’s plaudits for Kagame must thus remain—not least for the author’s own credibility—an interim judgment. For the intellectual difficulty with the utilitarian position is that the story is as yet far from over, so it is not possible to judge purely from “results.”</p>
<p><strong>CITIZENSHIP: THE SCHOLAR'S TAKE</strong></p>
<p><span style="font-variant: SMALL-CAPS;"> When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism and the Genocide in Rwanda<br /><em>by</em> Mahmood Mamdani<br /> Fountain (Kampala) 2010 (first published by Princetone University Press, 2001); 364 pp </span></p>
<p>After Courtemanche’s fantasising, Daillaire’s remorse, Gourevitch’s elegance and Kinzer’s hagiography, it is refreshing—although also sometimes hard work—to find the genocide treated with academic rigour.</p>
<p>This is also an important antidote to the lazy generalisations of hindsight. For it is easy to allow the genocide to dominate the retrospective horizon, obscuring the context which gave rise to it and thus “severing[ing] it so completely from the civil war that the act of killing would become devoid of motivation.” [268]. Kinzer, whose book is the most recent of those considered here, certainly veers in that direction when he casually gives Kagame and the RPF credit for “overthrowing a dictatorship and stopping a genocide.” [Kinzer, 336].</p>
<p>For Mamdani, genocide was the culmination of a regional “crisis of citizenship” which, seeded in colonial rule, was nourished by events in Uganda and Burundi, rolled through Rwanda and finally spilled into the DRC. If that sounds excessively theoretical and remote, Mamdani also insists that we confront the fact that the genocide was genuinely “popular” in nature—<em>not</em> just a few bad guys at the top manipulating the culturally herd-like masses—but a collective action that involved probably hundreds of thousands of killers and accessories. How could that be? Mamdani’s answer is that the genocide needs to be seen not as ethnic but as “<em>political</em> violence.” [268]</p>
<p>In a chapter on The Origins of Hutu and Tutsi, Mamdani sifts the academic literature to weigh both the separate origins thesis (in the colonial and Hutu Power variant, that ‘the Tutsi were conquerors from outside’), and the neo-Marxist claim (‘they were the same people; it was just a class difference’). He suggests that these are best seen as “complementary, rather than alternative accounts, each highlighting a different aspect of history” and recommends a “‘weak’ version of each.” [p. 57] “Ancestors of Hutu and Tutsi most likely had separate historical origins” [74], with Tutsi ancestors migrating over time into Rwanda from the east coast (maybe present-day Kenya), intermarrying and coexisting with the people they found there. In the process of Rwandan state formation, starting from the 15th century, Tutsi clans gradually predominated and established a kingdom under aristocratic lineages. This reached its height in the late 19th century reign of Mwami Kieri Rwabugiri, when there was “spectacular expansion of the boundaries of the Rwandan state” [69], with the people of incorporated “statelets” cast as ‘Hutu’ – “For Hutu, it appears, were simply those from a variety of ethnic backgrounds who came to be subjugated to the power of the Rwandan state.” [69-70] Although there were always poor Tutsi, “To be a Tutsi was . . . to be in power, near power, or simply to be identified with power—just as to be a Hutu was more and more to be a subject.” [75] Nevertheless, both Tutsi and Hutu formed a single cultural community (Banyarwanda), with a common language (Kinyarwanda). The Tutsi/Hutu distinction was thus essentially political. And even during this most bifurcated pre-colonial period, identities remained fluid to at least some extent. In addition to many earlier generations of intermarriage, the subject Hutu did have some political, administrative and military powers and, importantly, it was possible both for out-of-luck Tutsi to be ‘demoted’ into Hutu identities and for some Hutu to be ‘promoted’ to Tutsi status.</p>
<p>Then came the colonialists, who promptly ‘racialised’ Rwandan identities and “hardened Tutsi privilege . . . giving it an apartheid-like quality” [269]. Here, Mamdani highlights the distinction between settler colonial rule and indirect rule. In the former case (South Africa, Kenya, Rhodesia), political and civil rights were distributed according to race, as defined in civil law. This conferred a degree of ‘virtual’, albeit hierarchical, citizenship. Under indirect rule, by contrast, populations were divided according to ethnicity, whose ‘customary’ economic and social rights were overseen by ‘native authorities.’ Yet:</p>
<blockquote><p>Colonial Rwanda was a half-way house between direct and indirect rule . . . Belgian power constructed ‘customary law’ and ‘native authorities’ alongside civic law and civic authorities. But neither this law nor this authority were ethnicized. . . [The] colonial state in Rwanda produced bipolar racial identities and not plural ethnic identities . . . A single, binary opposition split the colonized population into two: a <em>nativized</em> majority opposed to several <em>non-native</em> minorities.” [34-35, emphasis in original.]</p></blockquote>
<p>Tutsi political power was formalised, extended, entrenched and legalised—with local Tutsi chiefs for the first time directly administering Hutu people—at the same time that the Tutsi were constructed as ‘non-native’ people (who, by implication, had no ‘customary’ or ‘ethnic’ entitlements.)</p>
<p>Small wonder that resentments would begin to develop among the Hutu majority, who over time came to see themselves as subject to two ‘foreign’ powers: Tutsi and colonial. As colonial sentiments became more ‘democratic’ (after World War II), church and colonial state authorities began to foster a Hutu “counter-elite” that led a 1959 revolution. This brought to power Grégoire Kayibanda, who “championed a racialized nationalism—of the Hutu,” [32] leaving the disempowered, ‘non-native’ Tutsi minority effectively barred from political participation. Yet, although Kayibanda’s rule saw anti-Tutsi pogroms and an outflow of refugees, most notably in 1959 and 1963, it did not result in a genocide. How come that would take another 35 years to brew?</p>
<p>Here, Mamdani’s account departs significantly from those of the less scholarly observers. If Kayibanda’s government brought majority rule, it did not deliver widespread prosperity or opportunity. Regional intra-Hutu rivalries emerged and, over time, popular dissatisfaction led to greater victimisation of the Tutsi. In 1973, Major General Juvénal Habyarimana displaced Kayibanda in a bloodless coup. In journalistic accounts, Habyarimana is widely disparaged as the man who led Rwanda to the brink of genocide. Mamdani, however, argues that Habyarimana’s ‘Second Republic’ brought “a shift in the political identity of the Tutsi from a race to an ethnic group. While the First Republic considered the Tutsi as a ‘race,’ the Second Republic reconstructed the Tutsi as an ‘ethnicity’ and, therefore, as a group indigenous to Rwanda.” [138] “From being banished from the political sphere under the First Republic, the Tutsi were brought back within the political fold. When Habyarimana announced the formation of his cabinet on June 1, 1974, it included, for the first time since 1964, a Tutsi . . .” [140]</p>
<blockquote><p>Even if limited and qualified, Tutsi participation in the political sphere continued. In October, 1990, when the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) invaded Rwanda, there was one Tutsi minister in a nineteen-member cabinet, one Tutsi ambassador, two Tutsi deputies in a seventy-seat national assembly, and two Tutsi in the sixteen-person central committee of the country’s only party, the MRND. The flipside of the Tutsi presence in the central state was that the Tutsi were carefully kept away from the organs of power: the army and the local state. While there was one Tutsi officer in the army, members of the army were prohibited by regulation from marrying Tutsi women. Similarly, there was an almost total absence of Tutsi from the local state: there was only one Tutsi prefect, the prefect of Butare, who was killed in the genocide, and not a single Tutsi burgomaster. [141]</p></blockquote>
<p>Nevertheless, “no major anti-Tutsi political violence was reported from Rwanda between the time Habyarimana came to power in 1973 and the onset of the war with the RPF in 1990,” [142]</p>
<p>Although Habyarimana’s rule was distinctly autocratic, its closing years did see—under pressure of economic downturn and the insistence of Western patrons—a political opening, a move towards multi-partyism (with one of the newly formed parties headed by a Tutsi) and even a qualified commitment to allow Tutsi refugees—those who could support themselves—to return. To Rwanda’s Western patrons, pre-eminently France and Belgium, this would have seemed like evidence that things were moving in the ‘right’ direction. So what went wrong?</p>
<p>A citizenship crisis in Uganda, according to Mamdani. There, around 4,000 Rwandans fought alongside around 10,000 Ugandans in the prolonged bush war that brought Yoweri Museveni to power in 1986. Most of the Rwandan guerrillas were Tutsi refugee-exiles, who had grown up in Uganda with limited civic rights, and had no place to call home. Mamdani, comparing them to Palestinians, suggests that they fought for Museveni in the hope of gaining full civic rights—a political home—in Uganda. During its ruling honeymoon, Museveni’s National Resistance Army/Movement appeared to vindicate that hope by according political rights—notably, the right to participate in local National Resistance Councils—on grounds of current residency,<em> not</em> on grounds of ethnicity or ancestry. The new Uganda, it seemed, was set to break the colonial mould of ‘customary’ and ‘ethnic’ citizenship, “sublat[ing] this colonial inheritance by altering the line that distinguished the political subject from the nonsubject.” [171].</p>
<p>Yet “the reform was both partial and tentative.” Under popular pressure for “noncitizens” to be weeded out of the Ugandan army, senior Rwandan officers were sidelined. In mid-1990, a land conflict involving Rwandan cattle keepers in western Uganda claimed public and parliamentary attention. The eventual settlement, in favour of Ugandan ‘natives,’ sent a clear message that Rwandans were not welcome as equal citizens in Uganda. The consequence “was to swing the balance of opinion, among both refugee commoners and refugee leaders, decisively against naturalisation in their countries of residence and tilt it in favour of an armed return to Rwanda.” [182] For, “Having embraced the Banyarwanda refugees as ‘comrades-in-arms’ during their hour of need . . . Uganda guerrillas-turned-government did not hesitate to ‘solve’ their first crisis in power by dispensing with the same comrades.” [268]. The armed return began that October.</p>
<p>Whatever its military skill, Mamdani is emphatic that the RPF arrived as an army of occupation, not liberation, in the areas it seized. There was some reported pillaging and, on many accounts, the RPF encouraged people to leave, presumably in order to increase pressure on Kigali. “The object of this kind of liberation was no longer the people but the territory” [189], such that RPF appeared to represent nothing more than Tutsi Power. In this, and in their tough negotiating position in Arusha—with the peace deal widely seen as confirming the defeat of a greatly expanded, but essentially humiliated national army—Mamdani also stresses the “naiveté” of RPF “leaders who were mostly born outside the country and whose sense of possibilities was shaped by their experiences in Uganda and not in Rwanda.” [214]</p>
<p>By February 1993, an estimated 950,000 (overwhelmingly Hutu) people had fled the occupied areas; many were displaced more than once as the RPF advanced. That same year, some 200,000 Hutu refugees entered Rwanda from Burundi, following massacres there by the (overwhelmingly Tutsi) Burundian army. These refugees were to play a leading role in spreading the genocide to parts of the country where it did not take immediate hold.</p>
<p>At the same time, the various political parties formed in the space opened up by Habariyamana’s reforms each created a youth wing that soon turned into a militia in an atmosphere of generalised militarisation. These, like the local self-defence militias also formed in areas close to the occupied territories, would become key genocide actors. Mamdani points out that “the instruments used to perpetrate genocide [were] not <em>created</em> for that purpose from the outset, but were <em>turned</em> to that purpose in the face of defeat in the civil war.” [217]</p>
<p>The political parties all split internally over how far to compromise with or stand firm against the RPF, with the odds increasingly stacked against compromise. For “the invasion literally reversed the dynamic of the Second Republic. By highlighting the distinction between the struggle for <em>rights</em> and the pursuit of power, it once again polarized Hutu and Tutsi as political identities.” [231]</p>
<p>This greatly empowered the most extreme Hutu Power faction, indeed engendered them: “The <em>génocidaires</em> were a political tendency born of civil war.” [217] Illustrations include the fact that the notorious RTLM ‘hate radio’ station “began broadcasting from Kigali . . . four days after the signing of the Arusha Agreement.” [190] With more than a million people having fled the RPF and the atrocities of a Tutsi army in Burundi, and with increasing economic distress “the core message of Hutu Power began to sound credible to ordinary Hutu ears in Rwanda: power sharing was just another name for political suicide.” [216] The Hutu masses became convinced that it was necessary to kill in order to avoid serfdom or annihilation. Cumulatively, however ‘unimaginably’ horrific it was, this is a credible account of the genocide, in terms of making it a comprehensible outcome of prior events and processes, without recourse to imaginative leaps or ‘cultural’ stereotypes.</p>
<p>Writing in 2000/2001, Mamdami was on the whole gloomy about Rwanda’s prospects. He was clearly right about the “crisis of citizenship” spilling into the DRC. There, Banyarwanda residents of many generations’ standing, some of whom had become known as ‘Banyamulenge’ (named after a mountain range) in a shift towards “ethnic citizenship” of the Congo, found themselves regarded as foreigners again, and once again further polarised along the Hutu/Tutsi divide. Rwanda had become, and arguably remains “the epicenter of the crisis of the African Great Lakes.” [265] (Only “arguably” because the weakness of the DRC state is also, arguably, a major component of regional instability.)</p>
<p>Within Rwanda, Mamadani describes the key challenge as “how to build a democracy that can incorporate a <em>guilty majority</em> alongside an aggrieved and <em>fearful minority</em> in a single political community.” [266] But, at the turn of the century, he did not see much progress towards this. Rather, he concluded, “structures of power [are] being Tutsified,” driven by the conviction that “Tutsi Power is the condition for Tutsi survival.” [270] In a somewhat admonitory tone, he suggests that:</p>
<blockquote><p>Like the Arabs of Zanzibar, and even the whites of South Africa, the Tutsi of Rwanda may also have to learn that, so long as Hutu and Tutsi remain alive as political identities, giving up political power may be a surer guarantee of survival than holding on to it. [279]</p></blockquote>
<p>Is this analysis now outdated—given the RPF’s apparent determination to transcend the binary, minority/majority opposition of Tutsi/Hutu identities by dissolving them altogether?</p>
<p>To all appearances, Rwanda today is more stable, peaceful and ‘developing’ faster than almost anyone would have predicted thirteen years ago, and Kinzer is far from unique in his admiration for what has been achieved. Political scientists, David Booth and Frederick Golooba-Mutebi, characterise the RPF strategy as “building support on a broad base by demonstrating an ability to provide more and better public goods” and delivering fast enough “economic and social progress” for “a new generation [to] emerge who are capable of fully assuming their national identity as Rwandans rather than privileging what divided them in the past.” (‘Developmental Patrimonialism? The Case of Rwanda’ in African Affairs vol. 111, 2012)</p>
<p>This sounds plausible, but will it work? I don’t know enough to have an opinion. But even if I knew a lot more I suspect I’d still find it too soon to say.</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-addthis field--type-addthis field--label-above"><div class="field__label">AddThis:&nbsp;</div><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style " addthis:title="" addthis:url="https://nickyoungwrites.com/?q=bookshelf-one-cheer-democracy/%E2%80%9Cimagining%E2%80%9D-genocide"><a href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_facebook"></a>
<a href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_twitter"></a>
</div>
</div></div></div>Wed, 23 Oct 2013 13:36:34 +0000Nick Young99 at https://nickyoungwrites.comThe moral vanity of empirehttps://nickyoungwrites.com/?q=bookshelf/moral-vanity-empire
<div class="field field--name-taxonomy-vocabulary-11 field--type-taxonomy-term-reference field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><a href="/?q=bookshelf" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Bookshelf</a></div></div></div><div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even" property="content:encoded"><p><span style="font-variant: SMALL-CAPS;"> Lost Lion of Empire: The Life of ‘Cape-to-Cairo’ Grogan <br />by Edward Paice <br />HarperCollins, London, 2002. (Paperback, 470 pp)</span></p>
<p>There is something rather unsettling about a book that relates so much of East Africa’s colonial history with so little mention of the ‘natives,’ who appear in these pages only as nameless and voiceless porters, servants or labourers. This is, to be fair, not a history but a biography: of Ewart Grogan (1874–1967), a British imperial adventurer and entrepreneur whose impact on Kenya was almost as formative as the impact of his hero and early mentor, Cecil Rhodes, on what is now Zimbabwe. (Kenya, however, at least avoided the indignity of ever being called ‘Grogania.’) It is, arguably, also apt that the natives should appear here as anonymous and generally passive, a mere accessory to the story of empire: for that, it seems, is how Grogan saw them. He was, on Paice’s account, a prodigiously energetic, stubborn, and in many ways visionary man. The visions, however, all turned on the economic potential of a ‘virgin’ land. What unsettles 21st century sensibilities is that seeing a place as ‘virgin’ entails—much as in the earlier colonisation of the Americas—seeing its existing human population as largely beside the point. </p>
<!--break-->
<p>While still in his twenties Grogan won fame as the first Victorian explorer to travel, in 1898-9, overland from ‘the Cape to Cairo.’ He is still erroneously commemorated by Wikipedia as “the first person to walk the length of Africa.” In fact he departed not from Cape Town but from the port of Beira (in Mozambique) and most of his journey was over water. After warming up with a few big game hunts, he sailed in relative comfort down lakes Nyasa (Malaŵi) and Tanganyika, whose shores at that time were dotted with missionary, trade and military outposts, and again took to the water in Sobat (South Sudan), sailing down the Nile to the Mediterranean. It was the bit in the middle that really brought him fame: a 1,000 mile trek north, mostly on foot, along what is now the border between Uganda and Congo and then across the vast swamps of the Sudd.</p>
<p>The chapters dealing with this journey are dull, and the book nearly went back on my shelf at this point. It is too easy to guess what is coming: malaria and dysentery, wild animals, hunger, lost equipment, terrified porters, cannibals, etc. Paice writes fluently and clearly but is not skilled or penetrating enough to make such predictability interesting. The best parts of the tale are, indeed, those told more directly in excerpts from Grogan’s own letters and published accounts.</p>
<p>Of more interest and lasting influence were Grogan’s entrepreneurial schemes. In 1903, he acquired a stake in a vast forestry concession in the Aberdare Mountains. He then waged a long and eventually successful campaign to facilitate extraction of the timber by getting the Colonial Office in London to build a branch line from the Mombassa-Uganda railway (which had been laid, at the end of the 19th century, at such vast public expense that opposition MPs in Westminster dubbed it the ‘Lunatic Line.’)</p>
<p>In 1904, Grogan bought, for a song, a 136 acre tract of swampland in Nairobi, when that city was still “a bastard child of the railway” (p. 151) – a squalid settlement of tin-roofed huts lacking water or sanitation, and where “at night, lions and other animals strolled the streets.” In 1948 he made a handsome profit by dividing and selling what had by then become prime real estate in a boomtown.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, he had built a lavish home in the city and an even more palatial hotel, ‘the Carlton of East Africa,’ with “a pet storage space where guests could leave lion and cheetah cubs,” “sumptuous eight course dinners, featuring such luxuries as caviar, lobster and aspic of foie gras,” and nightly dances to live music by a 5-piece (entirely European) jazz band (352).</p>
<p>In 1922, he developed the colony’s first deep-water port on a stretch of Mombassa waterfront. The Colonial Office had planned its own port and at first scorned Grogan’s initiative, but the government scheme was beset with delays and, as international trade soared, “only Grogan’s Mbaraki [port] stood between the African and European farmer and bankruptcy” (p. 324).</p>
<p>Grogan himself had become a substantial farmer, with various estates growing coffee and raising sheep and cattle. Quixotically, he also brought ice-packed trout ova from Scotland, via sea, rail and finally ox-cart, and managed within a couple of decades to establish 1,500 miles of thriving trout streams, “one more proof that all [he] deemed best about ‘home’ could be replicated in the East African Highlands” (p. 190). Of more economic significance, Grogan developed a 30,000 acre estate in Taveta, a sparsely populated, low-lying and previously semi-arid area whose productive potential he realised through massive irrigation schemes to establish sisal plantations.</p>
<p>These ventures were punctuated by recurrent clashes with both the ‘home’ government in London and its local administrators. Grogan cast himself as the champion of European settlers, numbering around 2,000 in the early years of the 20th century. Some of these were “aristocrats and public schoolboys [who] went to East Africa in pursuit of profit, sport and adventure. Above all, they nostalgically sought the freedom of . . . an ‘earlier England, a world that no longer existed.’” (197) More numerous were “British South Africans . . . who gave the country the over-riding feel of being a South African colony . . . They were an altogether more rough and ready lot, used to the hard knocks of the Boer war and the frontiersman’s life.” (198).</p>
<p>Grogan saw such human resources as essential to the development of the colony. To advance their interests, and the greater cause of Empire, he shuttled between London and Kenya lobbying political grandees, writing caustic letters to The Times and deploying his fame as an explorer to deliver silver-tongued speeches on numerous public platforms. (The same silver tongue—which Paice is inclined to attribute, along with Grogan’s “piercing” green eyes, to Irish ancestry—also proved useful in lining up investors in his own enterprises.) During a two-year break from the colony he briefly entered electoral politics in the UK, standing as Tory candidate for Newcastle-under-Lyme in the two general elections of 1910. He lost both times to the local Whig magnate, Josiah Wedgwood.</p>
<p>Plaice attributes Grogan’s conflicts with the British establishment to the “moral vanity of the Colonial Office,” which was theoretically committed to protecting “native interests.” As far as Grogan was concerned, the Office was staffed by remote bureaucrats who did not understand the realities on the ground and whose default position was to defer policy decisions.</p>
<p>One quandary was what to do about the 18,000 Indian labourers who had been shipped across the Indian Ocean to build the Mombassa-Uganda Lunatic Line. Two and a half thousand of them died on the job, but many of the survivors settled in the colony and by the early 1920s the Indian population outnumbered Europeans by three to one. The Indians established themselves in commerce and were quicker than native East Africans to demand political representation in the colony’s affairs. This was a thorny issue for London, because entirely ignoring Indian demands would risk further inflaming nationalist sentiments in India itself, the crowning jewel of empire; whereas conceding to Indian demands would enrage the European colonists, who were making veiled threats to declare independence. Grogan’s analysis, as relayed by Paice, was that the trouble stemmed from London’s earlier failure to adopt a more vigorous policy of white settlement. Sufficient numbers of Britons, who were ‘born to rule,’ would have prevented the problem ever arising.</p>
<p>Representatives of Indian and European populations were called to London in 1923 to confer on the matter. We learn in passing that “[T]he Revd. J. W. Arthur, a missionary, was nominated to represent the views of the African population.” (p. 306) The resulting compromise was that the Indians would get a few seats on the colony’s Legislative Council, but would continue to be barred from farming land in the most fertile areas. It is none too clear how this compromise served “native interests.”</p>
<p>What is clear from this book, if we didn’t know it already, is that British imperial policy in East Africa, although buttressed by a generalised conceit about fitness to rule over lesser peoples, arose from no master plan but from ad hoc and often sluggish bureaucratic responses to various crises and lobbies, yet was ultimately and pre-eminently responsive to the business interests of men like Grogan.</p>
<p>What is odd about Paice’s account is that he appears not only to accept this as brute historical fact, but to applaud it. At one point, for example, he writes:</p>
<blockquote><p>“By the 1890s the IBEA [Imperial British East African company] was bankrupt and only a brilliant campaign orchestrated by Grogan’s mentor, soldier-explorer Frederick Lugard, stopped the British government from abandoning Uganda altogether” (p. 146)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>“Brilliance” here is presumably measured by the success of the campaign, not by its wisdom, nor by its outcomes, and certainly not by any reference to “native interests.”</p>
<p>Grogan did not die a spectacularly rich man. His business ventures, some of which incurred substantial losses, were mainly financed by his wealthy wife (to whom he was multiply unfaithful) and by the string of investors he charmed with his gift of the gab. Although he enjoyed opulence, by any standards, throughout most of his life, it is easy to believe that he did not care much about money per se. It was the activity that mattered, the struggle to overcome obstacles to his grand visions, the relentless effort to shape the world.</p>
<p>I can understand Paice admiring such energy and single-mindedness, but his account should at least be tempered with some attempt to assess Grogan’s legacy. Kenya today is in some respects thriving and seems to have a fair prospect of achieving ‘middle income’ status. But political and economic power have been closely interwoven ever since the country became independent in 1963. This is nowhere more evident than in land ownership. Only 17 per cent of Kenya’s land is arable, and ownership of that land is heavily concentrated among a very small elite, led by the families of the three post-independence heads of state: Kenyatta (whose family is estimated to own half a million acres, including land that Grogan developed in Taveta), Moi and Kibaki. It would be hard to argue that men like Grogan caused such kleptocracy, but they certainly offered an object lesson in marginalising the overwhelming majority of the population from ‘development,’ a master class in how to get rich on juicy government concessions, and a model of lavish consumption in elite Country Clubs. The lunatic railway line, meanwhile, which might have proved a gift of enduring value, has been sadly neglected because of the rival interests of politicians who dominate the road haulage industry. But at least the trout streams remain.</p>
<p>Kampala, March 26, 2012</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-addthis field--type-addthis field--label-above"><div class="field__label">AddThis:&nbsp;</div><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style " addthis:title="The moral vanity of empire - nickyoungwrites.com" addthis:url="https://nickyoungwrites.com/?q=bookshelf/moral-vanity-empire"><a href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_facebook"></a>
<a href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_twitter"></a>
</div>
</div></div></div>Mon, 26 Mar 2012 05:00:00 +0000Nick Young95 at https://nickyoungwrites.comRedeeming Stalin’s Spanish running doghttps://nickyoungwrites.com/?q=bookshelf/redeeming-stalin%E2%80%99s-spanish-running-dog
<div class="field field--name-taxonomy-vocabulary-11 field--type-taxonomy-term-reference field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><a href="/?q=bookshelf" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Bookshelf</a></div></div></div><div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even" property="content:encoded"><p><span style="FONT-VARIANT: SMALL-CAPS"> “El Hombre que Amaba a los Perros” (“The Man Who Loved Dogs”)<br /><em>by</em> Leonardo Padura (2011, Tusquets Editoriales, Barcelona; 765 pp) </span></p>
<p>There are three main dog lovers in this well-crafted reconstruction of the exile and death of Leon Trotsky: Trotsky himself; Ramon Mercader, the Catalonian communist recruited by Moscow to assassinate him, and Ivan, a young Cuban whose literary ambitions have been reduced to sub-editing on a veterinary magazine when, in 1977, he meets the dying Mercader on a beach outside Havana and eventually becomes the reluctant narrator of the assassin’s tale. The narrative manages to generate suspense despite our knowing in advance the sticky end that awaits Trotsky. Equal skill and scrupulous research are brought to the wider, historical canvas, which features ‘live’ excerpts from the Spanish Civil War and the Moscow show trials as well as snapshots of Kruschev-era Russia and the mass exodus of Cuban citizens from that island in the mid 1990s. </p>
<!--break--><p>Dogs in general and Russian Borzois in particular wag their tails in the margins of this history, symbolizing (or at least recalling) the unquestioning fidelity and obedience demanded by communism (and, indeed, fascism.) At the same time, dog-loving suggests residual capacity for compassion in an era when a theoretical love of humanity so often translated into pitiless murder, with ruthlessness upheld as a ‘necessary’ virtue. Mercader, as portrayed here, is capable of killing a man, even a man he at least half-suspects may be great, but he is incapable of killing a dog. This is not presented as a morally insignificant fact, a mere quirk of his particular nature, much less to show that he is an inhuman monster who cares more for dogs than people: it shows, rather, his redeemable humanity. At least he’s capable of loving something.</p>
<p>The portrayal of Trotsky—who we follow through his eleven years of exile in Turkey, France, Norway and, finally, Mexico—is remarkably sympathetic. He soon repents his own role in laying the foundations for the apparatus of repression which Stalin, the “gravedigger” of communism, went on to perfect. He knows that Stalin is playing with him (like a cat with its prey), allowing him to stay alive only so long as he remains useful as a diversionary hate-figure for ‘the masses’ in Russia and as a pawn in the geopolitics of Europe. The famous exile is shown, repeatedly, as having a dog-like sense of smell when it comes to “sniffing out the political trail” from the clues in Stalin’s words and deeds: he foresees the Russian betrayal of the Spanish Republican cause; the wilful prevention of a broad anti-Nazi front in Germany; the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. He knows, as his children in Russia and abroad are sent to die in labour camps or assassinated by Moscow agents, that there is no escape. He is beaten but struggles on anyway, continuing, as Stalin exterminates all other major Bolshevik players and historical witnesses, to write prolifically about the derailing of the revolution, taking time out only to play with his grandson and dog and, fleetingly, to find respite in nature: fishing in the Bosporus, walking in Norwegian pine forests; collecting cacti in Mexico. This heroic picture is somewhat marred by the love affair with Frida Kahlo, which Pardua has to cover but seems uncomfortable with, managing it less deftly than most of his material.</p>
<p>Turning Ramon Mercader into a sympathetic figure is a more challenging task. The historical record tends to present him, like many of today’s portrayals of ‘Islamic terrorists’, as a one-dimensional fanatic. Padura works hard, and fairly successfully, to construct a more complex and credible character (for the one-dimensional fanatic is seldom credible) whose political passions and susceptibility to indoctrination are welded, at least in part, out of a complex relationship with his “hate-driven” Stalinist mother and an unsatisfactory love affair with a hard-as-nails Stalinette. (This may appear to smack of misogyny but the Stalinist mother, at least, is a matter of historical record. The descendant of Hispanic Cuban gentry, her political activism included attempting to burn down the factories of her bourgeois Catalonian husband.) The resulting, psychological profile is of a lonely man who is both determined to prove himself and eager, dog-like, to please a master. Political analysis is of distinctly secondary importance: in fact Mercader always needs his mother, Stalinette lover or Russian handler to unravel and explain for him the new twists and turns in the Great Pack Leader’s plan for humanity. He believes not because the strategy is plausible but because he needs to believe. In its closing stages the novel’s suspense derives from seeing how easily Mercader’s belief might be ‘turned’ by the personal influence (and more plausible arguments) of his victim, the leader of a shrinking pack, who he comes to know slightly (and, seemingly, to like) through an American Trotskyist woman—again, a ‘real’ historical figure—who Mercader beds, in accordance with Moscow’s plan, in order to gain access to the exile’s inner circle. (One winces to think what happened to that poor woman in later life).</p>
<p>When the ice pick finally falls it is driven not so much by ideological conviction as by Mercader’s feeling that this has, somehow, become his inescapable fate. The novel’s (entirely fictional) narrator, Ivan, ends up similarly ensnared. He has had political and emotional troubles of his own, and for many years is too frightened of challenging the orthodoxies of Soviet-Cuban historiography to set pen to paper; yet he ends up feeling compelled, destined, to write Mercader’s story, which came by chance to him and to no other. Even Trotsky often seems close fatalism: knowing what lies in store, and that it must be this way because no other choice is open to him, so he must accept his martyr’s lot. The transparent irony is that the real-life sense of compulsion and destiny that touches these three men has nothing whatsoever to do with the abstract, Marxist sense of historical necessity.</p>
<p>As literature, the novel needs to evoke sympathy (why else would we keep reading for more than 700 pages?), and it worked for me. Re-encountering Mercader in the dismal Moscow of the 1960s, after 20 years in a Mexico jail, officially a hero but closely watched by security goons, widely shunned by the sad little community of Spanish communist émigrés, only a one-dimensional fanatic could wish him a worse fate, begrudge him his two Borzois (named after places in Catalonia and France that their master can never re-visit), or begrudge him the permission, that finally comes, to go and die in Cuba. Before dying himself, we finally learn, he has to shoot one of the dogs, to save it from the suffering of a brain tumour. This is the redemptive moment, in which Mercader has become capable of mercy killing, not just pitiless murder.</p>
<p>Sympathy, evenly distributed, is of course also central to what Padura wants to say about this slice of history and our reading of it. He framed the novel, he tells us in a postscript, as “a reflection on the perversion of the grand Utopia of the 20th century.” As a moral autopsy of Stalinism, it reveals that the creature had no heart. This is hardly a new insight; but perhaps an act of moral imagination, a ‘fiction’, is required for us to grasp it properly as it recedes into the past. And this holds equally for our often shallow and facile understanding of the extremisms of the present. </p>
<p>Do we learn, here, anything about dogs? Well, they’re easier to love than people, that’s all.</p>
<p>September 14, 2011</p>
<p>PS. I forgot to mention that the International Brigadista and distinguished fabulist of Stalinism, George Orwell, also has a walk-on part here, when Mercader is spying on him in Barcelona. The historical record appears to show that another Englishman, David Crook, in fact did the spying on Orwell, but some accounts say that he, Crook, received espionage training from Mercader. More to the present point, however, is that according to Padura (and I doubt that this a fiction), Orwell kept a pair of Borzois back in England. Interesting, what?</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-addthis field--type-addthis field--label-above"><div class="field__label">AddThis:&nbsp;</div><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style " addthis:title="" addthis:url="https://nickyoungwrites.com/?q=bookshelf/redeeming-stalin%E2%80%99s-spanish-running-dog"><a href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_facebook"></a>
<a href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_twitter"></a>
</div>
</div></div></div>Wed, 14 Sep 2011 05:00:00 +0000Nick Young91 at https://nickyoungwrites.comMisanthropologyhttps://nickyoungwrites.com/?q=bookshelf-kampala-notebook-zettel/misanthropology
<div class="field field--name-taxonomy-vocabulary-11 field--type-taxonomy-term-reference field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><a href="/?q=bookshelf" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Bookshelf</a></div><div class="field__item odd"><a href="/?q=kampala-notebook" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Kampala Notebook</a></div><div class="field__item even"><a href="/?q=zettel" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Zettel</a></div></div></div><div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even" property="content:encoded"><p><span style="font-variant: SMALL-CAPS;"> “The Mountain People” <em>by</em> Colin Turnbull (1973, Pan, London; 253 pp) </span></p>
<p>In Uganda’s far northeast, bordering Southern Sudan and Kenya, the Kidepo National Park offers visitors a rare experience of African wildlife undisturbed by people. Road access is still difficult, but upmarket tourists can charter a light aircraft to fly in to a luxury tented camp where the abundance of game is matched by the abundance of culinary comforts. People who have made the trip say it is unforgettable. Now largely forgotten, however, is the human cost of creating this safari wonderland. </p>
<!--break-->
<p>In the mid 1960s Colin Turnbull spent two years living among Ik people, the remnants of a hunter-gatherer tribe who were forced out of their ancestral hunting grounds in the Kidepo valley in the process of creating the reserve. His account in The Mountain People, which was a bestseller in its day, is gripping, gruesome and infuriating in equal measure—leaving this reader, at least, angry not only at the appalling degradation of the Ik but at the author himself for continuing his voyeuristic charade without rebelling against his own academic discipline.</p>
<p>Turnbull’s tale is gripping partly because of its adventure-story style. Whilst covering all the bases of formal ethnography, his is a first-person narrative that makes no claim to scientific detachment but is aware of its own subjectivity. The result is the kind of gritty, personalised and apparently honest—yet still carefully constructed—reportage that was, in the 1980s, to become the staple of such runaway literary successes as Granta magazine.</p>
<p>The tale is also luridly gripping because of its sheer awfulness. When the post-independence government of Milton Obote gazetted the Kidepo valley for ‘conservation,’ the Ik, who had no modern schooling and were still ‘primitive’ enough to go naked, were expected to turn to farming on the rocky mountains overlooking the valley. This is Uganda’s most arid zone and scratching a living from its soils would have been tough even for experienced cultivators and even in the best of years. Turnbull’s ‘fieldwork’ in fact spanned two successive years of drought, giving him a close-up view of his study objects dying of starvation. He proceeds to describe them as a “depraved” and “degenerate” people, who have forsaken all bonds of reciprocity, all ties of kinship and affection, all religion, all morality, all authentic sociability in a vicious struggle for individual survival.</p>
<p>If this seems like a case of blaming the victims, it is not the simple raving of a missionary type or a crude modernist deploring native backwardness. In an earlier book, The Forest People, Turnbull offered a sympathetic portrait of “the Congo Pygmies,” among whom he spent several much happier years, finding much to admire in their social organisation. Here too, he reminds us in an introductory chapter that:</p>
<blockquote><p>It is a mistake to think of small-scale societies as ‘primitive’ or ‘simple’ . . . Hunters and gatherers, most of all, appear deceptively simple and straightforward in terms of their social organization, yet that appearance is far from being true. What is true, perhaps, is that the result of a typical hunting-and-gathering social organization is a simple and effective system of human relationships, and this is what so strongly appeals to many of those who have worked with them. . . . The smaller the society, the less emphasis there is on the formal system, and the more there is on inter-personal and inter-group relations, to which the system is subordinated. Security is seen in terms of these relationships, and so is survival. The result, which appears so deceptively simple, is that hunters frequently display those characteristics that we find so admirable in man: kindness, generosity, consideration, affection, honesty, hospitality, compassion, charity and others. This sounds like a formidable list of virtues, and so it would be if they <em>were</em>virtues, but for the hunter they are not. For the hunter in his tiny, close-knit society, these are necessities for survival; without them, society would collapse. (pp. 26-27)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He goes on to portray Ik society as one that has indeed “collapsed.” The men continue to hunt (including within the national park) and the women to forage, but they do so individually and whatever game or edible plants an individual finds are consumed immediately and as privately as possible. On a lucky day, people will gorge themselves rather than sharing, even with their immediate family. But there are few lucky days, and many more when children eat soil and small pebbles to assuage the hunger pains.</p>
<p>Children are ejected from the parental hut as young as three years of age, thereafter living in age-cohort gangs—the younger from 3 to around 8; the older, from 8 to around 12, when they in effect become adult. These cohorts band together for foraging, as this is their only hope of survival, but they fight over whatever they find. Individuals graduate from the junior to the senior cohort and then to adulthood at the point when they become too strong for their peers, who turn on them and force them out.</p>
<p>Old people, who are too weak to go out foraging, are left at home to starve. Worse, children mock and bully them, pushing them over as they attempt to crawl about, stealing food out of their mouths—quite literally: the kids’ best joke, according to Turnbull, is to wait until some starveling oldie has raised a morsel to his lips and then to snatch it away. Even the community soothsayer, who was once highly respected for his powers of divination, is eventually treated this way. Laughter at the suffering of others, spiteful enjoyment of their misfortune, is, on Turnbull’s account, about the Ik’s only remaining amusement.</p>
<p>Such food as nearly makes it into the old folks’ mouths generally comes from Turnbull himself who occasionally doles out scraps from his private supply, which he generally consumes guiltily, alone—just like the Ik!—behind the closed doors of his Land Rover. In time, the government begins to provide famine relief at a village several days walk away. Those strong enough to make the journey go to pick up hand-outs for themselves and their family, and then gorge the lot, even to the point of making themselves puke from overeating, a few kilometres into the journey home, with no apparent thought either for their dying kin or for the days to come.</p>
<p>When the young, the halt and the old die of starvation, their surviving kin, far from mourning, seem overwhelmingly preoccupied with avoiding the funeral obligations that used to exist in Ik culture. People at death’s door are pushed out of the family and village compound—a highly defended arrangement of impenetrable thorns and booby traps—in the hope that they will die elsewhere. In one case, a child was locked up until she died so that she could not pester others with her appeals for help; in other cases, parents hastily buried their children’s corpses inside the compound and then claimed ignorance of their whereabouts.</p>
<p>Turnbull sees a ruthless biological logic to all of this: the tribe is likeliest to survive extreme scarcity if resources are monopolised by the strongest, not wasted on the weak. But he cannot see anything human in Ik behaviour. The text often compares them unfavourably to animals, as in this comment when, returning to ‘the field’ a year later, he finds that rain has brought improvement to food supply but none to Ik manners:</p>
<blockquote><p>If they had been mean and greedy and selfish before, with nothing to be mean and greedy and selfish over, now they really excelled themselves in what would be an insult to animals to call bestiality.</p>
<p>The Ik faced a conscious choice between being humans and being parasites, and of course had chosen the latter. (p. 231)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It was perhaps this kind of misanthropic flourish that led some later scholars to challenge Turnbull’s work, describing it as exaggerated, as misrepresenting the Ik. Such criticism is in all likelihood fair, but is beside the larger point. I doubt that Turnbull was so dishonest as to invent the gruesome anecdotes he relates, and I have no difficulty accepting them as evidence of social “collapse.” More troubling, however, are firstly the bigger conclusions he wants to draw—and which apparently, yet speciously, justify this exercise in voyeurism—and, secondly, his failure to draw and act upon far more valid and pressing conclusions.</p>
<p><strong>A load of old Turnbull</strong></p>
<p>After listing the apparent virtues of Pygmy society in the introductory section quoted above (“kindness, generosity, consideration” etc), Turnbull adds that “It is a far cry from our [<em>‘Western’, one can only suppose</em>] society, in which anyone possessing even half of these qualities would find it hard indeed to survive, yet we are given to thinking that somehow these are virtues inherent in man.” (p.27) It is easy to assent, at least in part, to the thought that “we” are hypocrites who do not practice the virtues we claim to admire. But the claim that “we are given to thinking that somehow these are virtues inherent in man” is distinctly odd.</p>
<p>Confucius, arguably, believed in the inherent decency of human nature (while also believing that decency needs careful and continuous cultivation). But, in the religious, ethical and intellectual traditions of Europe, belief in intrinsic human goodness is only one of various, competing strands. It is openly challenged by the doctrine of Original Sin and, centuries later, by Hobbes’ notion of human life in “the state of nature” as being “nasty, brutish and short.” The whole point for Hobbes, and for many later ‘Enlightenment’ thinkers, was that human beings need society precisely in order to rise above bestiality. They saw society, civilisation, as triumphs over nature, not intrinsic to it. Many, it has to be said, also believed that Africans were not capable of, or had not made, this transcendental leap from the “state of nature” to civilisation.</p>
<p>Turnbull claims to have shown that:</p>
<blockquote><p>Those values which we cherish so highly and which some use to point to our infinite superiority over other forms of animal life may indeed be basic to human society, but not to humanity, and that means that [<em>sic</em>] the Ik clearly show society itself is not indispensable for man’s survival, that man is not the social animal he has always thought himself to be, and that he is perfectly capable of associating for the purposes of survival without being social. (p. 239)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But by no means has he shown that “society itself is not indispensable for man’s survival” except in the very short run—for the Ik as he portrays them seem well on the way to extinction. And, as Hobbes’ 16th century “state of nature” notion attests, the distinction between humanity <em>qua</em> species and human society is neither new nor difficult to grasp, and hardly stood in need of ‘empirical’ demonstration (without even embarking on the thorny issue of what could count, in such matters, as empirical proof .)</p>
<p>Another feature of Turnbull’s account is his frequent comparison of the Ik’s “extreme individualism” with the individualist trend of “our” modern culture. He warns us, direly, that “the symptoms of change in our own society indicate that we are heading in precisely the same direction.” (p. 238) This is specious. The kind of complex narcissism arising in post-scarcity societies, and which is even more marked in the present day than in Turnbull’s, is certainly a legitimate object of social and cultural critique. But it is surely facile to conflate this kind of post-scarcity “individualism” with an individualism that arises precisely in response to the exigencies of dire (and externally imposed) scarcity. The word “individualism” is flexible enough to cover all bases but that very plasticity empties it of useful content.</p>
<p>This lazy conflation owes at least in part, one feels, to Turnbull’s earnest desire to assert the universality of humanity (as distinct from the universality of society) and to show “us” that we are “fundamentally” just like the Ik. But did this really still need arguing in the 1960s? Did the Western “we” of that time still need persuading that humans comprise a single species and that—as Hume and other Enlightenment thinkers had concluded long before Marx—the cultural and societal differences between them arise from the differing material and historical conditions they have to contend with?</p>
<p>Well, yes, maybe it <em>did</em> still need arguing at a time when ‘scientific’ racism still cast long shadows over Western brains. But wasn’t that at least in part because of the head- and jaw-measuring antics of earlier generations in the anthropological tribe, when ‘other’ people were studied not as people like “us” but as tropical bugs to be stuck upon a pin and examined for their supposedly intrinsic properties? Turnbull, to be sure, can in some lights be seen as struggling to depart from that tradition. But, far from being a great leap forward, spending years filling notebooks with observations on a people starving to death in fact seems like the apotheosis of an observer/object relationship that implicitly denies shared humanity. It smacks, moreover, of a peculiarly modern, post-scarcity, and Western kind of ‘individualism.’ For we can see well enough that the author has had a great and stirring physical, intellectual, moral and spiritual Boy’s Own adventure, funded by a research grant and then rewarded with best-seller royalties. But what about the Ik?</p>
<p>Underneath all the philosophical flim-flammery of Turnbull’s book, the single most plain, accessible and important truth it reveals is that it is a very bad idea indeed to put people in material conditions that make society impossible for them. We know from page one that this is what happened to the Ik. Similar tragedies were befalling other people at much the same time. In Uganda alone, the Batwa (‘Pygmy’) people were being pushed off their ancestral lands in the west, bordering Congo, to make way for a gorilla reserve and the Ruwenzori Mountains National Park. This, and abundant examples elsewhere, were nothing to do with ‘culture’ or with ‘human nature’ and everything to do with the political economy of post-colonial development paradigms which still today actively stigmatise and materially destroy people who do not fit in with current visions of modernity.</p>
<p>So why didn’t Turnbull throw away his pith helmet and make the dispossession of the Ik not just the background context for but the main object of his study? Why didn’t he intercede on their behalf with the government of Uganda and complain to the international conservation lobby, including the recently-established (1961) World Wildlife Fund for Nature, which at that time was supporting this conservation approach? Why didn’t he expose its human cost in international media? Well, to be fair, international media had negligible interest in such stories in the 1960s. But he could at least have run shouting to the also recently-established (1964) Minority Rights Group.</p>
<p>He did, he tells us, make reports to the government of Uganda—reports that were necessary to keep obtaining his study permits. He recommended to the authorities, he further informs us, that the remaining Ik should be forcibly dispersed and resettled in other parts of Uganda, in groups small enough to be safely absorbed into, without morally infecting, host communities. He laments the fact that this advice went unheeded, saying that “had they [the remaining Ik children] been rounded up and carted off like cattle they might have grown up as human beings.” (p. 235) Instead, he ends up “hoping that their isolation will remain as complete as in the past, until they die out completely.” (p. 235).</p>
<p>This is not merely misanthropic, it is egregious. If the point of Turnbull’s fieldwork was to see, in the name of scientific enquiry, the depths to which humanity can be reduced, it did, in a sense, succeed: for I can think of little lower than building a career on documenting the sufferings of others and ending by wishing for their extinction.</p>
<p>September 9, 2011<br /> Kampala</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-addthis field--type-addthis field--label-above"><div class="field__label">AddThis:&nbsp;</div><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style " addthis:title="Misanthropology - nickyoungwrites.com" addthis:url="https://nickyoungwrites.com/?q=bookshelf-kampala-notebook-zettel/misanthropology"><a href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_facebook"></a>
<a href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_twitter"></a>
</div>
</div></div></div>Fri, 09 Sep 2011 05:00:00 +0000Nick Young89 at https://nickyoungwrites.comSecurity, securitisation and the art of persuasionhttps://nickyoungwrites.com/?q=bookshelf/security-securitisation-and-art-persuasion
<div class="field field--name-taxonomy-vocabulary-11 field--type-taxonomy-term-reference field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><a href="/?q=bookshelf" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Bookshelf</a></div></div></div><div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even" property="content:encoded"><p><span style="FONT-VARIANT: SMALL-CAPS"> “Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army” <em>by</em> Jeremy Scahill, (Serpent’s Tail, 2007, 550 pp); “Whoops! Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay” <em>by</em> John Lanchester (Penguin, 2010, 239 pp)</span></p>
<p>Here is an interesting contrast in efforts at persuasion. </p>
<p>“Blackwater” is a worthy, liberal critique of one of the creepiest facets of our age: the outsourcing of state violence to “security companies” and “defence contractors”—correctly outed in the subtitle as “mercenaries.” This topic deserves serious and widespread attention but, alas, this book has little chance of persuading anyone not already convinced of Blackwater’s intrinsic creepiness. It is unlikely even to add significantly to the armoury of facts and arguments at the disposal of those already so persuaded, because it is such a tiresome read. I could not get past Chapter Two (a disquisition on the family, early life and character of the company’s founder and proprietor, Erik Prince).</p>
<!--break--><p>
There are two, main problems. Firstly, the reader is treated as a person of rather limited intelligence. It’s not enough to make a point or state a salient fact once, they have to be hammered home every few paragraphs, each looking for a punchier way to say the same thing. Everything must be spelled out, made vivid and illustrative, like TV written down. Presumably, this exasperating style is driven by a concern for accessibility in a world where even readers of “non fiction” are taken to be suffering from Attention Deficit Disorder. But, that being the case, we might just as well leave the book on the shelf and wait for the TV documentary to come around. </p>
<p>Secondly, the book wears its politics on its sleeve in such a <em>casual</em> way that it can aspire to speak only to the already converted. (As if to underline the point, literal sleeve endorsements come from Naomi Klein and Michael Moore.) The pages are littered with passing references to “neo-cons” and “the Christian Right.” My complaint is not that there are no valid connections to be made here, but that these labels are themselves deployed as instruments of persuasion. We are, in no small measure, invited to deplore Blackwater merely by association with people and beliefs that we can be relied upon already to despise. This gives the text a distinctly parochial quality. </p>
<p>Also parochial is the concentration on a single company, the eponymous Blackwater. It is, surely, not the individual case that calls for analysis but the wider field, which includes hundreds of companies, and the general trends: the expansion of the “military industrial complex” from manufacturing into services, enabled by ideological determination to roll back the state; the transition from seedy, post-colonial adventurers like “mad Mike Hoare” (a Briton hired by governments in the 1960s for skulduggery in Africa), through posher outfits like Executive Outcomes (established in the late 1980s by a veteran of the apartheid-era South African Defence Force), to a full blown and socially respectable mercenary industry; the concurrent, expansionary trend of existing domestic security service providers—groups like G4S (formerly Securicor), which was allowed into prison management in the UK during the Thatcher years; the huge boost given to this industry by the war on terror; its globalisation, both in the bigger firms going multinational, and in the business model is springing up across the world: for example, Uganda’s Saracen International, established by President Museveni’s brother and now guarding the homes and businesses of the Kampala elite while also bidding for lucrative defence and training contracts in Somalia. These patterns are far more important than the kind of car that Erik Prince’s dad drove. </p>
<p>Well, maybe broader analysis comes in later chapters—for the book is fully 550 pages long—but that was fatally late in my case because I had already switched channel. The repetitions and the repeated appeals to visceral prejudice brought on an attack of the very Attention Deficit Order that they seemed designed to prevent. Less, in this case, would certainly have amounted to more.</p>
<p> “Whoops!”—which analyses the financial crisis still casting long shadows over Western civilization—is more concise yet also much more thoughtful, provocative, and informative. </p>
<p>The author benefits, it should be said, from “the advantages of backwardness”—the fact that, for all the benefits of 24/7 news and current affairs programming, the great majority of the Western public, and even its intelligentsia, is so ignorant of how financial markets work. (A fact which alone makes two cheers for democracy seem like one too many.) Lanchester reveals all, in ways that are clear enough to grasp, succinct enough to be well worth the effort, yet thoughtful enough to avoid patronising the reader. He makes a powerful (albeit far from original) case that the “crisis” was rooted in and directly attributable to the big push for de-regulation which started in the Reagan-Thatcher years, and which wreaked utter havoc on some small countries—notably, Iceland and Ireland. Importantly, it is a <em>case</em> that is made here, a matter of argument, not of ideological conceit. </p>
<p>Lanchester unravels both the complexities of investment banking (“leveraging,” “derivatives,” “securities” <em>etc</em>) and the calculus of risk (developed by egghead mathematicians with PhDs from Oxbridge and the Ivy League) on which investment funds relied—but which, whoops!, turned out to be wrong. Yet his account is also compelling for the way he locates these “technical” aspects of today’s finance industry in the broader historical context of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. </p>
<p>In particular, he highlights the negative effects—on western polities—of the end of the Cold War. Whilst asserting that “the western liberal democracies are the most admirable societies that ever existed” [page 9], he argues that:</p>
<blockquote><p>[T]he population of the west benefitted from the existence, the policies and the example of the socialist bloc. For decades there was the equivalent of an ideological beauty contest between the capitalist west and the communist east, both of them vying to look as if they offered their citizens the better, fairer way of life. The result in the east was oppression; the result in the west was free schooling, universal healthcare, weeks of paid holiday and a consistent, across-the-board rise in opportunities and rights. In western Europe, the existence of local parties with a strong and explicit admiration for the socialist model created a powerful impetus to show that ordinary people’s lives were better under capitalist democracy. In America, the equivalent pressures were far fainter—which is why Americans have, to Europeans, grotesquely limited holiday time (two weeks per year), no free healthcare and a level of life expectancy lower than that of Europe.</p>
<p>And then the good guys won, the beauty contest came to an end and so did the decades of western progress in relation to equality and individual rights. In the USA, the median income—the number bang in the middle of the earnings curve—has for workers stayed effectively unchanged since the 1970s while the inequality of income has risen sharply. Since 1970, the highest fifth paid of US earners have grown 60 per cent better paid. Everyone else is paid 10 per cent less. [10]</p></blockquote>
<p>This is broad-brush stuff, but it is also a strong thesis. Lanchester himself grew up in Hong Kong (the son of a banker), where the refugees flooding across the border into Britain’s last colony of substance needed no persuading that Maoism was a vile system. Thus, Hong Kong had no need to develop a politically and socially liberal welfare state, and could just get on with the no-holds-barred moneymaking that, in Lanchester’s book, became the post-Cold War “Western” template.</p>
<p>This is, of course, a simplification, and one that applies pre-eminently to the US and UK. For, as Lanchester makes clear, it was those countries that led the deregulation charge—with Britain, especially, going full tilt away from manufacturing and into financial services. In Europe, Germany retained a more balanced and robust economy; while in North America Canada resisted the deregulation <em>zeitgeist</em>. Post-Maoist China and other cheap labour economies don’t get as much mention as they deserve here either—not as a <em>cause</em> of the crisis, but as helping to enable that Anglo American drive into a “post-industrial” wonderland. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, Lanchester is surely right in treating “the crisis” as multi-layered and thus requiring multiple levels of explanation:</p>
<blockquote><p>[The financial crisis] was based on a climate (the post-Cold War victory party of free-market capitalism), a problem (the sub-prime mortgages), a mistake (the mathematical models of risk) and a failure, that of the regulators. It was their job to prevent both the collapse of individual companies and the systemic risks which ensued; they failed. But that failure wasn’t so much the absence of attention to individual details as it was an entire culture do to with the primacy of business, of money, of deregulation, of putting the interests of the financial sector first. [173]</p></blockquote>
<p>One of the most important consequences of the crisis will be its long term impact on the global division of labour that was emerging at the close of the 20th century—the West investing and the rest sweating. The future now seems likely to be much more complicated than that. </p>
<p>Lanchester’s view of the Anglo American future is bleak. In an epilogue written in 2010 he states that “no meaningful proposals to effect change have been enacted” (202), noting how Obama’s initially “meaningful” reform proposals have since been watered down through corporate and political pressure. “Meaningful” proposals may also come from the UK’s Vickers Commission when it reports in September 2011; but they will likely be diluted by a government hoping to re-privatise the British banks bailed out through nationalisation (for who will want to buy shares in banks whose freedom to pursue profit is limited by regulations?).</p>
<p>Thus, Lanchester concludes, we are more than likely heading for a second crisis:</p>
<blockquote><p>“The real fix is going to have to wait until after the next crash . . . The risks proposed by the financial sector remain intact, and . . . are likely to lead to another systemic crisis within the next few years . . . When that happens, there will be a period of extraordinary danger, greatly exceeding the crash of 2008, because the next time it will be close to impossible for the politicians to help the banks stay solvent . . .(217)</p></blockquote>
<p>Hmmm. Time, perhaps, for Britons to start burying canned food in the garden. </p>
<p>It is, however, possible that the Vickers Commission report will fatally fracture the UK’s Conservative/Liberal coalition government—for the Liberals will want much more regulation of banks than the Conservatives are prepared to stomach. A coalition rupture could even lead to general elections next year—after a winter that is almost bound to be horrible for many of the public sector workers now receiving redundancy notices, and for people whose welfare benefits have been slashed. An early UK election might be worth a punt at Ladbrokes. </p>
<p>A safer bet, though, is this: not many US Republicans will read Scahill’s book; quite a lot of UK Liberals will read Lanchester’s. It’s not political perspective that divides these authors, so much as the fact that Lanchester thinks more deeply and writes a lot better.</p>
<p>February 14, 2011</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-addthis field--type-addthis field--label-above"><div class="field__label">AddThis:&nbsp;</div><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style " addthis:title="Security, securitisation and the art of persuasion - nickyoungwrites.com" addthis:url="https://nickyoungwrites.com/?q=bookshelf/security-securitisation-and-art-persuasion"><a href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_facebook"></a>
<a href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_twitter"></a>
</div>
</div></div></div>Mon, 14 Feb 2011 06:00:00 +0000Nick Young81 at https://nickyoungwrites.comThe dream of reason produces monstershttps://nickyoungwrites.com/?q=bookshelf-elsewhere/dream-reason-produces-monsters
<div class="field field--name-taxonomy-vocabulary-11 field--type-taxonomy-term-reference field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><a href="/?q=bookshelf" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Bookshelf</a></div><div class="field__item odd"><a href="/?q=elsewhere" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Elsewhere</a></div></div></div><div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even" property="content:encoded"><p>A day is not long to spend in Madrid, and the two hours we can spare for the Museo del Prado are hardly sufficient, so we ignore most of its treasures and concentrate on Goya. </p>
<!--break-->
<p>The western world reconfigured itself profoundly during Goya’s long life (1746-1828), sketching the outlines of a modernity that would last well into the 20th century. His work not only depicts and ‘interrogates’ the era but, in the astonishing progressions of subject, technique and medium, also reflects its restlessness. It’s <em>all</em> innovative: from the early tapestry studies of outdoor leisure, through the court portraits, the ‘capricious’ etchings of sexual, social and religious violence, the Disasters of War etchings, to, finally, the deaf old man’s ‘dark’ period, which produced not only monsters but also moments of great compassion and enigmatic beauty (most strangely of all, perhaps, in The Dog: it beggars belief that this was painted two centuries ago.)</p>
<p>The portraits bring courtly soap opera to life. The Duchess of Alba, Spain’s richest and most glamorous widow, is everywhere. It’s not so much the formal portraits as the snapshot of her ladyship taunting a pious, old maidservant that shows us how besotted the middle-aged painter was. (That snapshot was in oils; dozens of quick sketches—including a particularly exquisite one of <em>la duquesa</em> bundling up her ample hair—are scattered across the world’s richest galleries.) And despite the lack of hard evidence to confirm the rumour, she certainly looks like the model for the famous Naked Maja, the first Spanish painting to present a woman’s body ‘full frontal’ and without the narrative veil of classical mythology or Scripture to justify the unblinking revelation of flesh. This picture, the blurb says, was commissioned by and hung in the private study of Manuel Godoy, prime minister to Charles IV and lover to his Queen, Maria Luisa. Goya also painted Godoy’s wife, the convent-schooled Countess of Chinchón: pale, pretty, pregnant, feet hidden by a long dress in the French style (as opposed to the local, <em>maja</em> cut, which left the feet and ankles visible and more free to move about.) Women bound, women unbound. And there’s a portrait of the royal family too, in which the cuckold King stands apart, structurally divorced from his ageing Queen and her youngest, presumably bastard, child.</p>
<p>How did Goya get away with painting so much truth? No doubt the celebrities of the day wanted ‘media’ coverage as much as ours do. Interesting that they were no more able to control it.</p>
<p>Then in blows Napoleon on a great wave of Egalité and efficient slaughter, and Spain’s not-bad 18th century reverts to a story of imperial trauma and inner strife that will continue until the death of Franco. But Goya’s canvases of war and insurrection, and the etchings that followed, are naked of historical conceit, just looking at this violence in the face. Perhaps no-one has done so much to show that bad things—bad things outside the realm of heavenly displeasure and within the realm of human stupidity and venality—can be painted and need to be.</p>
<p>Plate 43 in the earlier set of etchings, Los Caprichos, and originally intended as that collection’s frontispiece, shows the artist slumped asleep at his desk with owls rising nightmarishly behind. It bears the legend ‘El sueño de la razón produce monstruous’ which is generally translated as ‘the sleep of reason produces monsters.’ This does not seem right to me. Leastwise, it can easily be misheard as normative, making Goya a banal spokesman for Enlightenment, urging vigilance against unReason. Whereas I think he understood perfectly well, and meant, that Reason has a dark side, as inseparable from it as night from day, and that we cannot stay awake forever.</p>
<p>Kampala, August 20, 2010</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-addthis field--type-addthis field--label-above"><div class="field__label">AddThis:&nbsp;</div><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style " addthis:title="The dream of reason produces monsters - nickyoungwrites.com" addthis:url="https://nickyoungwrites.com/?q=bookshelf-elsewhere/dream-reason-produces-monsters"><a href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_facebook"></a>
<a href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_twitter"></a>
</div>
</div></div></div>Fri, 20 Aug 2010 05:00:00 +0000Nick Young69 at https://nickyoungwrites.com